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STANDARD BOOK 
OF JEWISH VERSE 



COMPILED BY 

JOSEPH FRIEDLANDER 

EDITED BY 

George Alexander Kohut 



NEW YORK 
DODD, MEAD AND C0A4PANY 

1917 



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Copyright, 191 7 

BY 

JOHN FRIEDLANDER 



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NOV 15 1917 


©CI.A477574 


nyt-o 1 , 



EDITOR^S INTRODUCTION 

A MELANCHOLY Interest attaches to the pub- 
lication of this work. Its compiler, after de- 
voting many arduous years to its preparation, 
had read the last proofs, when death summoned him. 
Like rhe prophet Moses, who was permitted to get 
a glimpse of the Promised Land ere he was trans- 
lated to Eternity, this modest, patient scholar, toiling 
with touching devotion and sublime unselfishness in 
the vineyard of the Lord, was destined only to vision 
the rich vintage he had sown, but not to taste of its 
fruits. 

This Anthology will serve as a fitting memorial of 
'he man, whose profound love for his people was the 
keynote of his life and whose keen appreciation of 
Hebrew melody make him a worthy critic and his- 
torian of the art of Jewish song. 

It Is with pleasure, not unmixed with some poig- 
nancy, that I recall the early days of our comrade- 
ship, when, as Incumbents of almost adjacent pas- 
torates, we were privileged, far away from the cen- 
tres of culture and learning, to discuss matters that 
deeply Interested us both. It was then that I learned 
how rich was his mind, how mature his judgment, 
and how ardent his faith in the future of his people, 
for whom he cherished such deep love and devotion. 
Isolated though he was In a small hamlet, with no 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

congenial spirits to bear him company, he lived a 
life full of idealism and noble activity, esteemed by 
Jew and Gentile alike ; cherished and revered no less 
for his lofty character than for his charity and sweet 
human nature. Though a staunch and uncompromis- 
ing Jew, he did not exclude from the fellowship of 
his heart men of all creeds, and among the host of 
those who mourn for him today, will be found many 
men, not of his own faith, who beheld in him an 
''Israelite without guile." It may be truly said of 
him that he was a man of God, possessed of rare 
simplicity and a spiritual passion which more than 
once sapped the well-springs of his vitality and hur- 
ried him to an untimely grave. 

Joseph Friedlander w^as born in 1859, at Edin- 
burgh, Scotland. He received his early education at 
New Castle on Tyne and at Middlesborough, graduat- 
ing from Jews' College, London, England. His first 
charge was at Victoria, Australia. Returning to Eng- 
land, he became minister of the North West London 
Synagogue. For four years he served as Secretary to 
the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire and likewise as 
Secretary to the English Zionist Federation. He came 
to America in 1895, and for ten years occupied the 
Rabbinate of Congregation Emanu-El, at Beaumont^ 
Texas. He also held pastorates at Waco, Texas; 
Ontario, Hamilton (Canada) ; Greensborough, N. C. ; 
Orange and Plainfield, N. J., where he died, after 
a brief illness, induced by overwork, incident to the 
preparation of this Anthology. He was a frequent 
contributor to the religious and secular press of Eng- 
land and America, and, judging from his single ven- 
ture in Jewish journalism, he was particularly well 

vl 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

qualified for literary work. Had he lived, he would 
undoubtedly have produced several books of lasting 
merit. From May, 1906, to September, 1907, during 
his incumbency at Waco, Texas, he issued a periodical 
which he entitled The Jeivish Hope. It was pub- 
lished, at San Antonio, first as a monthly, then as 
a bi-monthly, and the twelve numbers it comprises 
give ample evidence of his intellectual fertility, poise, 
discrimination and scholarship. Only one complete 
file of this paper has been preserved. It is now a 
part of the Jewish collection at the New York Pub- 
lic Library. 

This journal was his organ and oracle. Into it he 
poured all the wealth of his rich mind, and those 
who read its pages with discerning eyes may almost 
feel the beating of his heart. The earnestness and 
fervency of his appeals ; the integrity of his convic- 
tions ; the candor with which he met squarely every 
issue and problem which agitated American Jewry; 
his unflinching courage and uncompromising loyalty, 
are all elements which make the new^spaper he cre- 
ated a distinctive human document, to which lovers 
of Zion will yet have to go for counsel and inspira- 
tion. 

Being himself a man of exceptional poetic gifts, 
he had a fine appreciation of poetic values. Already 
in the "old Texas da5^s," w^hen we discussed books 
and bookmen, and occasionally scanned together a 
fine hymn of some mediaeval Hebrew bard, he was 
full of enthusiasm over the plan of bringing together, 
in a compact and convenient form, poems that were 
the most typical of the varying moods of Jewish gen- 
ius. The present collection, therefore, may be said 

vli 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

to actually represent the concentrated thought of 
twenty years. A few weeks before his death, my 
lamented friend did me the honor of consulting me, 
at frequent intervals, regarding the plan and scope 
of the work, and while we did not agree on certain 
basic principles and some essential details, he was so 
modest and self-effacing, and deferred so gently and 
genially to the advice of others, that, in the end, his 
own view was subordinated, and what he accepted as 
superior judgment prevailed. In this, as in all his 
dealings with his fellow men, his sweet docility, amia- 
bility and chivalrous courtesy were the attributes which 
gave strength and power to his character and served 
to endear him to all with whom he came in contact. 

Although the title, "The Standard Book of Jewish 
Verse," seems to imply that it is a collection which 
comprises poems of recognized merit that bear the 
stamp of general approval, it must be understood that, 
in no sense, has it been placed before a literary tribu- 
nal and that its value is yet to be appraised. The com- 
piler was a man of catholic sympathies. He included 
in this Anthology almost every phase of the Jewish 
spirit. If by dint of rare diligence, acute discrimina- 
tion, and by all the subtle processes of racial sym- 
pathy he has succeeded in producing a work which 
will be acclaimed as a classic, so that this volume may 
take a notable place among other similar collections, 
his arduous and devoted labor will yield rich recom- 
pense. 

The compiler's untimely death, before the final revi- 
sion of the book had been completed, necessitated a 
careful re-reading of the entire text. With the aid 
of another mutual friend, who prefers to remain 

• • • ' 

viu 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

nameless, this Irksome and difficult task has been ade- 
quately accomplished. While it has not been possi- 
ble, for obvious reasons, to verify, line by line, the 
accuracy of numerous fugitive pieces, by minor poets 
— scattered as they are in periodicals not readily ac- 
cessible — it may safely be assumed that no errors of 
any consequence remain. The poems of classical au- 
thors have been scrupulously collated with^ the edi- 
tions generally accepted as definitive and standard. 

The Introduction was pieced together from frag- 
ments of manuscript left by the author, and particular 
care has been taken to reproduce as much of the 
original phrasing as possible and to round out some 
paragraphs, here and there. In the same spirit in which 
they were conceived. 

The Editor has also added a comprehensive Index, 
which will facilitate reference, and desires distinctly 
to state that he holds himself responsible only for 
this feature of the work, as well as the revision of the 
compiler's Introduction, but In no wise for the ar- 
rangement of the material, and the general charac- 
ter of the contents. 

George Alexander Kohut. 

New York, August i, 191 7. 



IX 



INTRODUCTION 

JEWISH poetry has its own place in the Song- 
History of the world. Dryden has significantly 
summarized the great poets of their representa- 
tive countries: 

''Three poets — three distinct ages born — 
Greece, Italy and England did adorn. 
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed; 
The next in majesty; in both the last. 
The force of nature could no further go. 
To make a third, she join'd the former two." 

But he said nothing of Hebrew poetry. Probably 
he had in mind that the sacred poetry of the Jews 
stood on a plane of its own — unapproachable, lofty, 
sublime — the poetry that lifted up to infinite heights 
of subliminal consciousness the peoples w^ho absorbed 
it. It was the poetry whose marked influence on the 
destinies of the higher races of mankind moulded in no 
small degree the civilization we enjoy. Indeed, it 
might be said that it has revolutionized its intellectual 
and spiritual conceptions. 

Certiainly there is a marked difference between 
Greek and Jewish poetry. Let us understand by the 
former an inclusive term, embracing all profane and 
secular poetry of other lands and ages — Russian, 
Persian, Italian, German, English, Celtic, Spanish — 
for, in the last analysis, all poetry of whatever kind, 
lyrical, epical and dramatic, must be finally traced to 
the Greeks. Their culture and development conduced 
to the free practice of every kind of poetic art. Both 
in form and spirit, all later poetry was derived from 

xi 



INTRODUCTION 

the Attic poets, and, to this day, our best singers go 
to them for inspiration and for imitation. Being 
themselves possessed of a deathless afflatus, of a divine 
form or a divine mould of beauty, their poetry, 
whether dramatic or lyrical, remains the source from 
which all nations have drunk. 

In no less universal degree has Hebrew poetry fash- 
ioned the modern soul to its finely-tempered edge. It 
was essentially religious, flowing from an intense racial 
consciousness and developing to an exalted spiritual 
mood, under stress of mingled storm and sunshine of 
national fortune. It was dominated by the personal 
emotional note. The soul of the singer was linked 
in all its moods to. the relationship it bore to God. 
The overshadowing presence of the Almighty in all 
its varied and infinite manifestations was an ever con- 
stant influence. 

In the Psalms, Israel sang his hymn of spiritual 
love to God. They were the outpourings of his daily 
experience. The consciousness of God in all his 
thoughts and actions was the mainspring of all his 
personal emotions. If he circumvented an enemy, or 
defeated him by the prowess of his arms, the victory 
was attributed to Elohim, to Jehovah, the special 
guardian of Israel. If he enjoyed prosperity and 
lived at ease under his fig and vine tree, it was as- 
cribed to God. Whatever happiness came to him was 
vouchsafed by his Adonai, Who had the power and 
will to bring to him either joy or sorrow, fortune 
or adversity, life or death. He acknowledged that in 
all His dealings, God was just and merciful. Who 
ordered all things for the best. And the Jew clung 
to his God with every fibre of his being; loved Him 
with all his strength, with all his heart and with all 
his mind. 

These two species of poetic art dominated the world. 
Yet, although each had its own distinctive charm and 
greatness, some affinity can be traced between them. 
The deathless dramas of the Greek poets were per- 

xii 



INTRODUCTION 

meated by a spiritual emotion. In Job, as in the 
Greek tragedies, especiallj^ by Euripides, there is a 
common meeting ground for the Jew and the Greek. 
As Achad Ha-am points out, in his essay on "Job and 
Prometheus," there is in every people something which 
transcends individual culture, and, while a national 
soul underlies its characteristics, in each one, human 
nature is common to all. The operation of physical 
and natural laws produces like results. In the Jew, 
however, the moral spirit was supreme, while, in 
the Greek, the passion for beauty was the governing 
Impulse. The Hebrew spirit was a spirit of hope and 
faith ; the Greek was one of blind fatalism and un- 
relieved pessimism where the future was concerned. 
What the gods willed was to be accepted with forti- 
tude and resignation. In the Hebrew scheme of 
things, prayer, repentance and good conduct could 
avert the evil decree. 

In, the poetry of the Hebrews — and that is Its dis- 
tinctive note — there is an abiding and keen conscious- 
ness of its relationship to a personal God. In Greek 
poetry, it Is a blind. Inexorable destiny that rules, 
against which man and all his efforts are vain. 

It will be easy to see why the genius of Hebrew 
poetry, as exemplified in the Psalter, should have im- 
measurably surpassed the Greek poetry as an influence 
on character. Human nature has always Inclined to 
rest Its hopes on a just Providence, on a Mightier 
Power than itself, Who, If He does not change the 
Immutable laws of the world, yet rules It with In- 
telligence and benevolent wisdom. Greek and Jew- 
ish poetry, the one by virtue of Its classic grace of 
form, and the other by virtue of Its abiding spiritual 
charm, constitute the two great divisions In which 
the art of song Is resolved. All other subordinate 
schools of poetry are directly traceable to one or an- 
other of these primary sources. Greek and Jewish 
poetry constitute in their circumference the em- 
bracing and all-sufficient needs of the world for at- 

xill 



INTRODUCTION 

tuning to the human harp the Immortal themes of the 
soul. 

Jewish poetry was strongly imbued with its national 
spirit. This is always its underlying motif. The 
Jewish bard sang of God and His wonderful Provi- 
dence. He sang, too, of his hopes and aspirations in 
the future — a future which, however dark in the pres- 
ent, had always a bright silver lining. He sang of a 
restored nationality, of a spiritual kingdom, of a reign 
of righteousness, of a reconciled world, where all the 
children of men, however diverse their beliefs and 
ideals, would at last unite with Israel in the worship 
of one Supreme and Holy God. 

This is still the dominant note of all Jewish poetry. 
It is varied here and there by a bitter cry of despair 
and suffering, by an appeal for heavenly vengeance 
against the enemies of Israel, against those who 
crushed Judah in the thraldom of oppression. The 
main themes are the hope of the rehabilitation of the 
nation's ancient glory and the immortalizing of the 
great heroes of the race, with the recital of their 
achievements and martyrdoms. 

That the Jewish race, through exile and persecu- 
tion, has not lost its national heritage of song is amply 
proved in these pages. The Ghetto was not a favor- 
able nursing ground for the Muses, and the narrow, 
confined life there was all but fatal to the cultivation 
and development of the poetic temperament. Only in 
times of great stress and suffering did the strong 
natural impulse of the soul for expression yield to its 
overwhelming need and desire. There were two main 
streams of poetic activity In the Jews of post-exilic 
times. The first was an ardent feeling to glorify 
God In song, which contributed so largely to the en- 
richment of the ritual. The Piyutim (hymnology) 
were the principal media through which this feeling 
found utterance. Very little of this rich psalmody 
of Israel has found Its way to the ear of the world. 
Yet, In beauty and majesty of thought, as In fanciful 

xiv 



INTRODUCTION 

and sublime diction, few productions of the religious 
poetry of the world can compare with these match- 
less outpourings of the soul. They reach to the 
highest planes of spiritual thought and seraphic fire. 
It will be worth while to study the religious poems 
in the section of this book entitled "Liturgical and 
Mediaeval Period," to estimate the wealth of Jewish 
hymnology it contains. Solomon ibn Gabirol, Jehu- 
dah Halevi, the Ibn Ezras, Israel Nagara and many 
more, were masters of this art, and their contributions 
constitute a mine of richest ore, not merely for the 
synagogue service, but for the spiritual elevation of 
Israel. No other factor in the life of this much-tried 
nation has so helped it to bear its burdens as the 
consolation afforded by these glorious hymns. It gave 
the Jew the courage and strength to undergo the 
long series of cruel martyrdoms which he endured 
through the Middle Ages. His sublime faith and 
his kinship with God were nourished on these Piyutim. 

It is only within recent years that these liturgical 
poems have been made accessible tO' the English read- 
ing public, chiefly through a band of able and schol- 
arly interpreters, whose poetic grace of style is not 
by any means inferior to their thorough knowledge 
and insight into the spirit of the composers. In par- 
ticular, the translations of Alice Lucas, Mrs. Red- 
cliffe Salomon (Nina Davis), Israel Zangwill, Israel 
Abrahams, Solomon Solis Cohen and Israel Cohen are 
splendid renditions of the originals. 

It may not be out of place to contrast the striking 
difference between the manner in which the Jews of 
the Middle Ages met their fate and that in w^hich the 
Jewish poets of our own times regarded the pogroms 
and persecutions in these latter days. Our fore- 
fathers were evidently of much more heroic mould. 
They sang their hymns of glory to God, as they 
mounted their funeral pyres, and expired with the 
ancient confession of the Unity upon their lips. They 
were animated by a sublime self-surrender to the will 

• XV 



INTRODUCTION 

of God ; a complete faith in His overshadowing Provi- 
dence and in the ultimate adjustment of the apparent 
inequalities of reward and punishment, of unmerited 
suffering and undeserved prosperity and enjoyment. 

In the series of poems in the Mediaeval Section 
are to be found some of the most moving and tragic 
hymns in the whole range of human history. Es- 
pecially is this the case in the Section headed "In 
the Crusades." In the lurid glare they cast upon the 
grim, dark horrors which the Jewish communities 
passed through in that age of ruthless fanaticism, 
there shines forth, in strong contrast, an unfaltering 
spirit of loyalty and devotion to faith, which caused 
them to welcome the most excruciating deaths with 
singular heroism. It w^as a triumph of sublime cour- 
age over the fears of bodily pain and suffering. God 
had decreed that the crown of martyrdom should be 
bestowed upon His chosen ones, and they submitted 
almost joyfully to the ordeal, voicing their invincible 
fealty in plaintive and heart-stirring song. 

How different was the spirit in which modern 
poets, both Hebrew and secular, apostrophised the 
Russian pogroms! These latter upbraid God for per- 
mitting their enemies to massacre the Jews. They 
draw realistic pictures of the unspeakable outrages 
they endured, including all the hideous details, with- 
out that artistic touch with which the Greek drama- 
tists and the Hebrew poets of old depicted tragedy. 
The difference is that of a soul still firmly anchored 
and clinging to its Maker and one overpowered by a 
crushing sense of dark despair and death, for whom 
there is no gleam of a brighter existence beyond the 
eternal stars. 

That oppression and persecution were the prime 
causes why the Jewish muse did not flourish is suf- 
ciently evident from the fact that, when this condi- 
tion disappeared, even for a brief interval, it was 
immediately followed by a renaissance of surpassing 
poetic activity. When, under the Arabs, Spain en- 

xvi • 



INTRODUCTION 

joyed for a few centuries comparative peace and tran- 
quillity, and inaugurated a new era of science and 
learning, the Jews of the country rivalled the scholars, 
poets and philosophers in their contributions in that 
field. From the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries 
a galaxy of brilliant poets and writers appeared, than 
whom no greater have yet been seen. Their works, 
for the most part written in Hebrew and Arabic, 
have not yet been fully revealed to the world. 

In the Sections of this book entitled "The Medi- 
aeval Period," "The Jewish Year," and "Liturgical 
Poems," will be found a sufficient number of trans- 
lations to convey some idea of the extent and variety 
of their poetic horoscope. They do not merely vie 
with Klopstock and Milton and other religious poets, 
but far surpass them in sublimity of thought, in range 
of philosophic intuition and in elevation of moral tone. 
Especially rich in these qualities are the liturgical 
poems embodied in the ritual. The religious psalmo- 
dy of these writers is wonderfully touching and in- 
spiring. We get from them something more than 
a glimpse of the inward nobility of their hearts, the 
purity of their souls and the godliness of their lives. 
In these impassioned synagogue melodies Israel sang 
his anthem of spiritual love to God. 

Poetry may be said at least to have been the ground 
on which Jew and Gentile could make their common 
humanity felt, and it is not the least satisfaction to 
the compiler of this Anthology that here they stand 
side by side in a great cause, with one aim before 
them and united in its performance as never before. 
The history of Jewish Emancipation and the gradual 
dispulsion of prejudice and injustice may very well be 
traced through Byron and Lessing and Browning and 
Swinburne and many others, to these days of liberty 
and enlightenment, blazing the onward march of civili- 
zation through centuries of dark superstition and in- 
tolerance, teaching lessons of the highest import to the 
world of true brotherhood, wise reconciliation of dif- 

xvii 



INTRODUCTION 

ferent beliefs and a higher philosophy of life and con- 
duct. 

In tliese, most conspicuous are the poems of non- 
Jewish poets, who have eagerly employed their gifts 
to crush down prejudice and oppression. Byron and 
Lessing were the first in this army of equally dis- 
tinguished sons of the Muse: Longfellow, Browning, 
Joaquin Miller, Wordsworth, Townsend and many 
others. The most eloquent diatribes on the Dreyfus 
Case were written by Swinburne, and the Russian 
pogroms called forth a great number of stirring poems 
by Christian writers. 

A new era was ushered in when the flamboyant 
genius of Byron burst upon the w^orld, under the im- 
pulse of a strong devotion to the cause of liberty, 
ardent love for the ancient glory of Greece and a 
growing sympathy with all oppressed and weak na- 
tionalities. Byron conceived a generous emotion for 
the downtrodden Hebrew race. The grandeur of 
their ancient tradition and the dark tragedy of their 
history in the Middle Ages, their outlawry from the 
world, powerfully appealed to him, and he gave ex- 
pression to his sympathies in a series of strikingly 
beautiful poems. His "Hebrew Melodies" stand out 
as the most efflorescent of his minor poems. They 
are instinct with a wonderful understanding of the 
Hebrew spirit. No one else has Interpreted the soul 
of the ancient Hebrew so truly as when he pictured 
him overwhelmed In the final catastrophe that over- 
took him when the Temple — the symbol of his na- 
tionality and the visible embodiment of his eternal 
faith — w^ent up In flames to the sky at the hands of 
the Romans. To the patriotic Hebrew, that was an 
evidence that all for him w^as lost, that God had 
withdrawn his protection and favor from his people, 
and that henceforth the hand of Destiny would lay 
heavily upon them. 

The Jews of modern times have never done justice 
to the great service rendered them by Byron, and it 

xviii 



INTRODUCTION 

would only be fitting that a monument be raised in 
England to that great poet, commemorating his glori- 
ous aid in vindicating for the Jews their rightful 
place among the nations of the world. So, too, Les- 
sing, in his drama "Nathan the Wise," and through 
his friendship with Moses Mendelssohn, brought 
about a powerful reaction in favor of the Jew. To 
these two gifted men, must be attributed the impetus 
that was given to both Jewish and non- Jewish poets 
to find in the Jew a fit subject for poetical illustra- 
tion. Most of the distinguished poets of the past and 
present generation have added to the rich store of 
poetic lore some sterling work of Jewish interest. 
These comprise our greatest poets, among them 
Wordsworth, Browning, Scott, Longfellow, Tenny- 
son, Swinburne, George Eliot, Thomas Bailey Aldrich 
and others too numerous to mention, but who should 
be remembered w^ith honor and gratitude. 

The Jews themselves, to whom poetry had almost 
become a forgotten art, awakened again to the fact 
that the strains of the harp of Judah still lingered 
in their souls. Some sang In Hebrew, like Luzzatto, 
Wessely, Salom Cohen, David Franco and a host of 
minor poets. All were outranked by Heinrich Heine, 
whom it would be superfluous to describe as one of 
the immortals in the Valhalla of Song. His "Je- 
huda ben Halevi" and "Prinzessin Sabbat" are but a 
few examples of his quaint, delicate and inimitable 
art. They are limned in eternal colors, like one of 
the great dramas of Shakespeare or Euripides, and, 
like ancient Grecian sculpture, they are things of 
beauty and a joy forever. 

Without taking the form of an historical survey, 
these poems easily portray, if not exactly in chrono- 
logical order, at least in panoramic sequence, the most 
striking events in Jewish history. They set forth the 
character of the nation's achievements, its heroes, Its 
prophets, kings and statesmen and, above all, the eter- 
nal Ideals of the race, the unquenchable fire of its 

xlx 



INTRODUCTION 

faith, which has burned on, not fitfully, but steadily 
and grandly through all the dark and moving cen- 
turies. 

Although here and there a false quantity may be 
detected and imperfect technique may be apparent, yet 
the poems on the whole are surprisingly good. It 
would be unfair to compare them, in idiomatic dic- 
tion and graceful execution, with poetry which flour- 
ished in a national atmosphere — the outcome of con- 
ditions altogether favorable for the production of 
genuine lyrics. Many of them, however, are possessed 
of the highest poetic qualities and are instinct with 
rare spiritual fervor. Jessie E. Sampter's poem on 
"Anemones" is a fine example of a true lyric, which 
can vie with the best; and scattered through these 
pages are many which will delight the reader with 
their exquisite and perfect phrasing. A number of 
these modern writers, too, are either alien born or 
the offspring of foreign parents. They acquired a 
wonderful mastery of the niceties and intricacies of 
what is comparatively a new language. Poetry of a 
decidedly high order may be ascribed to many of 
the selections included from the pen of George A. 
Kohut, Joseph Leiser, Alter Abelson, Harry Weiss, 
Miriam del Banco, Penina Moise, Rebecca Altman 
and numerous others. Of those who have not writ- 
ten in the vernacular, but either in Hebrew or Yid- 
dish, translations of which will be found in this vol- 
ume, may be mentioned Byalik, Frug, Morris Rosen- 
feld, "Jehoash" and Raskin. 

Many of the poems are notable for the beautiful 
thoughts and sentiments they enshrine; fragrant and 
delicate flowers of the spirit, enriching the intellectual 
heritage of humanity. 

If this Anthology serves no other purpose than to 
impress the reader, both Jew and Gentile, with the 
consciousness of the age-long idealism of the race, 
from whose loins sprang that sweet singer of Israel 
whose Psalmody is still the greatest spiritual inheritance 

XX 



INTRODUCTION 

of humanity, it will not have been compiled in vain. 
May it be the will of Providence that our brethren 
of the faith of Israel, who have so miraculously sur- 
vived persecution and martyrdom through the cen- 
turies, be at last admitted into the fellowship of na- 
tions, with their national glory restored and 
rehabilitated, and Palestine, the land of their fathers, 
once again established as the cultural centre whence 
all moral and spiritual forces are to emanate which 
will enrich and ennoble the world. 

Joseph Friedlander 

(Edited by G. A. Kohut) 

(June 25, 1917.) 



XXI 



ACKNOWLEDGMEN TS 

MY indebtedness extends to a long range of 
sources and authorities, which are in the main 
responsible for any merit this book may pos- 
sess. To the following publishers, periodicals and 
newspapers, my acknowledgments are preeminently 
due: 

The Macmillan Company, New York. 

William Heineman, London, England. 

George Routledge & Sons, London, England. 

John Lane & Company, New York City. 

Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York. 

Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. 

The Jewish Publication Society of America. 

Dr. Israel Abrahams, Cambridge, England. 

Mrs. Alice Lucas, London, England. 

Mrs. Redcliffe Salaman (Nina Davis), London, 
England. 

Mr. Israel Zangwill, London, England. 

Jewish Religious Educational Board, London, Eng- 
land. 

Jewish Chronicle, London, England. 

The Reform Advocate, Chicago, 111. 

The J?nericnn Israelite, Cincinnati, Ohio. 

The Jewish Exponent, Philadelphia, Pa. 

The Jewish Comment, Baltimore, Md. 

The American Hebrew, New York. 

The Hebrew Standard, New York. . 

The Maccabcean, New York. 

The Menorah Monthly, New York. 

The Ark, Cincinnati, Ohio. 

xxiii 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

I am also indebted to a number of periodicals and 
newspapers for poems — notably The Jciuish Quar- 
terly Review, The Menorah Monthly (formerly the 
official organ of the B'nai Berith), The Jewish Hope, 
The Jewish Messenger, and various scattered, short- 
lived, fugitive periodicals. 

Various other Anthologies have also greatly helped 
me in my vv^ork — more particularly the excellent and 
exhaustive Jlebreiv Anthology of my friend. Dr. 
George Alexander Kohut, who has also permitted the 
use of a number of poems from his own pen, printed 
in an edition only privately circulated. 

The indulgence of both publishers and authors is 
asked, if due acknowledgment is not herein made for 
the use of any copyright material which may be in- 
cluded in these pages. 



[Oiving to the untimely death of the compiler, it has 
not been possible to ascertain whether the above list 
of Acknowledgjnents is complete. As Dr. Fried- 
lander was most scrupulous in his relations with others, 
it is safe to assurne that he has not failed to record his 
indebtedness, so far as it lay in his power.^ 



XXIV 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Editor's Introduction v 

Introduction xj 

Acknowledgments xxiii 



I. BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

The Bible — Anonymous i 

The Bible — Richard Barton i 

The Bible — Da'vid Le'vi i 

The Light and Glory of the World — William Cotvper 3 

The Bible — Phoebe Palmer 4 

The Written Word — Sir Robert Grant 5 

Book of God — Horatius Bonar 5 

The Old Book — A brum S. Isaacs 7 

Israel and His Book — Felix N. Gerson 7 

The Ha' Bible— Robert Nicoll 8 

Fullness of the Bible — H. J. Betts 9 

Inspiration of the Bible — John Dryden "9 

Contents of the Bible — Peter Heylyn 10 

Esteeming the Bible — Horatius Bonar ii_ 

Judah's Hallowed Bards — Aubrey De Vere n 

Poets of Old Israel — John Vance Cheney 12 

On Translating the Psalms — Sampson Guideon, Jr... 12 
To God — Gregory Nanziansen {translated by Allen W. 

Chatjield) 13 

Thou Art of All Created Things — Calderon 14 

The Seeing Eye — Reginald Heber 15 

O Thou Eternal One — Gabriel Romanovitch Dcrz- 

havin {translated by Sir John Boivring) 15 

The Infinity of God — Emily Bronte 15 

Adoration — Madame Guyon i6 

"Whither Shall I Go?" — Eliza Scudder 17 

Creation's Psalm — Sivithin Saint Sicithairie 17 

Making of Man — Edivin Arnold 18 

Adam and Eve — John Milton 20 

Adam to Eve — John Milton 20 

2iXV 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Eve — Lydia Huntley Sigourney 20 

The Rainbow — Felicia Hemans 22 

The Rainbow — Henry Vauglian 22 

Translation of the Patriarch — Lucy A. Randall 22 

Abraham and His Gods — Richard Monckton Milnes 

{Lord Houghton) 24 

Abraham — John Stuart Blackie 25 

The Tent of Abraham — Charles Sivain 28 

The Ballade of Dead Cities— Edmund Gosse 30 

Hagar — Hartley Coleridge 31 

The Meeting of Isaac and Rebecca — Arthur Hugh 

Clough 31 

Jacob's Dream — S. D 32 

Pillow and Stone — Abram S. Isaacs 33 

Beth-El — John B. Tabb 33 

As Jacob Served for Rachel — Anonymous 34 

MiZPAH — Anonymous 36 

Israel — John Hay 36 

The Cry of Rachel — Lizette Words^vorth Reese 38 

Dirge of Rachel — IVilliam Knox 39 

Moses — A^ jV 40 

Rescue of Moses — Anonymous 42 

The Young Moses — Anonymous 44 

Moses — John Stuart Blackie 46 

On the Picture of the Finding of Moses by Pharaoh's 

Daughter — Charles and Mary Lamb 48 

Moses in the Desert — James Montgomery 50 

The Destroying Angel — Abraham Coivley 51 

The Passover — R. E. S 52 

Out of Egypt — Dorothea De Pass 54 

Psalm CX\Y—Myrtilla E. Mitchell 55 

Passage of the Red Sea — Reginald Heber 56 

The Destruction of Pharaoh — John Ruskin 57 

The Passage of the Red Sea — Henry Hart Milman. . . . 58 

Passage of the Red Sea — Anonymous 59 

The Song of Miriam — Anonymous 60 

Sound the Loud Timbrel — Thomas Moor" 61 

Song at the Red Sea — George Lansing Taylor 62 

The First Song of Moses — George Wither 63 

Miriam — E. Dudley Jackson 65 

Exodus X: '21-23 — J- f^ • Burgon 67 

Mount Sinai — Horatius Bonar 67 

At Sinai — Isabella R. Hess 69 

Divine Love — Anonymous 70 

"Moses as Lamp-Bearer" — IVilliam Stigand 71 

Aaron's Breastplate — Anna Shipton 71 

Lights in the Temple — John Keble 72 

Bezalel — Israel Zangii-ill 74 

Moses and the Angel — Edivin Arnold 74 

xxvi 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Moses and the Dervish — Oicen Meredith 76 

The "Moses" of Michael Angelo — Robert Broivning. 'j-j 

Moses on Mount Nebo — /. Solomon 77 

The Kiss of God — John White Chadii'ick 79 

Weep, Children of Israel — Thomas Moore 80 

"No Man Knoweth His Sepulchre" — William Cullen 

Bryant 81 

Burial of Moses — Cecil Frances Alexander 8i 

Ode to the Statue of Moses — Anonymous 84 

"Speak, Lord, for Thy Servant Heareth" — James 

Drummond Borthivick 85 

Jephthah's Daughter — Lord Byron 86 

Jephthah's Daughter — Jchoash {translated by Alter 

Brody) 86 

Samson — John Milton 88 

Ruth — Thomas Hood 88 

Ruth and Naomi — William Oliver Bourne Peabody.. 89 

Ruth — H. Hyman 90 

Ruth — Felicia Hemans 90 

The Moabitess — Phillips Brooks 91 

Ruth and Naomi — Loivell Courier 91 

Song of Saul before His Last Battle — Lord Byron. ... 92 

The Field of Galboa — William Knox 92 

Kynge David, Hys Lamente over the Bodyes of Kynge 

Saul of Israel and His Sonne Jonathan — Sir 

Philip Sidney 93 

David's Lament — Robert Stephen Haicker 95 

David and Jonathan — Lucretia Davidson 95 

Lamentation of David over Saul and Jonathan His 

Son — George Wither 96 

Jehovah-Ni3Si. The Lord My Banner — William Coivper 97 

The Song of David — Christopher Sharp 98 

The Poet's Soul — Anonymous 99 

King David — George Peele 100 

To David — Miriam Suhler loi 

David — Alter Abelson 101 

The Harp of Faith — Abram S. Isaacs 102 

The Harp of David — Jehoash {translated by Alter 

Brody ) 103 

Absalom — Nathaniel Parker Willis 104 

In That Day — A. C. Benson 106 

The Chamber over the Gate — Henry Wads^vorth 

Longfelloiv 106 

On Viewing a Statue of David — Eve Gore-Booth 108 

Sleep — Elizabeth Barrett Brozvning 109 

Psalm VII — Alfred S. Schiller-Szinessy 109 

My Times Are in Thy Hands — Christopher Nenvman 

Hall no 

xxvii 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

"The Lord Is My Shepherd, I Shall Not Want" — Re 

Henry ." in 

The Prayer of Solomon at tpie Consecration of the 

Temple — Rebekah Hyneman 112 

Solomon and the Bees — John Godfrey Saxe 114 

The Chief among Ten Thousand — Horatius Bonar . ... 116 

Solomon's Song — Regina Mlriayn Block 117 

The Rose of Sharon — Ahram S. Isaacs 118 

AzRAEL — Henry Wadsivorth Longfelloijj 120 

Wisdom — Isidore Myers 121 

Habakkuk's Prayer — William Broome 122 

Trust — M. M 122 

Trustfulness — J. Leonard Levy 123 

Watchman! What of the Night? — James Mc^v 124 

Come Not, Oh Lord — Thomas Moore 124 

Think on God — R. E. S 125 

Job's Confession — Edii-ard Young 126 

Dying — Shall Man Live Again? — Albert Frank Hoff- 
mann 126 

The Destruction of Sennacherib — Lord Byron 127 

Jeremiah, the Patriot — John Keble 128 

The Ruler of Nations — John Keble 129 

The Fall of Jerusalem — Alfred Tennyson 129 

Hebrew Melody — Mrs. James Gordon Brooks 130 

Lament for Jerusalem — Marion and Celia Moss 131 

Song of the Jewish Captives — Henry Neile 132 

The Jewish Captive's Song — Marion and Celia Moss.. 132 

The Hebrew Minstrel's Lament — Anonymous 133 

Jewish Hymn in Babylon — Henry Hart Milman 134 

Oh! Weep for Those — Lord Byron 135 

Na-Ha-Moo — J. C. Levy 136 

By the Rivers of Babylon We Sat Down and Wept — 

Lord Byron 137 

By Babel's Streams — H. Pereira Mendes 137 

The Jewish Captive — Elizabeth Oakes {Prince) Smith. 138 

The Return from Captivity — Marion and Celia Moss. 139 

The Wild Gazelle — Lord Byron 139 

Nehemiah to Artaxerxes — William Knox 140 

Belshazzar — Bryan Waller Proctor {Barry Cormvall) . 141 

Daniel — Richard Wilton 142 

Vision of Belshazzar — Lord Byron 143 

Babylon — Anonymous 144 

Herod's Lament for Mariamne — Lord Byron 145 

The Ark of the Covenant — Nina Davis 146 

Before the Ark — George Alexander Kohut 149 

Menorah — William Ellery Leonard 151 

The Menorah — Harry Wolf so hn {translated by H. B. 

Ehrmann) 153 

The Holy Flame "Menorah" — George Jay Holland. . . 154 

xxvili 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Prayer of the High Priest — Marie Ilarrold Gar- 
rison 155 

The High Priest to Alexander — Alfred Tennyson ... . 156 
On the Day of the Destruction of Jerusalem by 

Titus — Lord Byron 157 

At Samaria — Clinton Scollard 158 

The Temple — David Le-vi 159 

Ode to the Sacred Lamps — AI. L. R. Breslar 160 



II. TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

The Sea of the Talmud — Joseph Leiser 163 

The Talmud — S. Frug {translated by Alice Sione 

Blackivell) 165 

HiLLEL and His Guest — Alice Lucas 167 

Akiba — Alter Ahelson 167 

Sunshine after Storm — JFilliam D earn ess 168 

Who Serves Best — George Alexander Kohut 169 

Be Not Like Servants Basely Bred — Alice Lucas 170 

The COxMmanDxMEnt of Forgetfulness — Alice Lucas 171 

Who Are the Wise? — Anonymous 172 

What Rabbi Jehosha Said — James Russell Lotuell 173 

Brotherly Love — Thomas Bailey Aldrich (?) 173 

God's Messengers — Mrs. A. R. Levy 174 

Ben Karshook's Wisdom — Robert Broicning 175 

The Vision of Huna — Abram S. Isaacs 176 

Rabbi Ben Hissar — Anonymous 177 

The Messenger — 0. B. Merrill 179 

The Forgotten Rabbi — G. M. H 180 

The Two Rabbins — John Greenleaf Whittier 181 

The Two Rabbis — Mrs. Levitus 184 

At Last— Adelaide G. Waters . 185 

The Passing of Rabbi Assi — Edtdn Pond Parker 186 

The Lent Jewels — Richard Chenevix Trench 189 

The Loan — Sabine Baring-Gould 190 

The Two Friends — John Godfrey Saxe 194 

The Rabbi's Vision — Francis Broiune 195 

The Emperor and the Rabbi — George Croly 198 

He of Prayer — J. F 200 

The Angel of Truth — Leopold Stein 201 

The Faithful Bride — Anonymous 204 

The Tongue — John D. Nussbaum 205 

The Tongue — Anonymous 206 

The Universal Mother — Sabine Baring-Gould 206 

Sandalphon — Henry ITads'worth Longfello^cV 207 

Repent One Day before Thy Death — Rabbi Eleazar.. 209 

Value of Repentance — Robert Uerrick 209 

xxix 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

III. MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 

Now Die Away My Tuneful Song — Anonymous 213 

Martyrdom — Rufns Learsi 213 

During the Crusades — Eleazar 214 

During the Crusades — Menahem Ben Jacob 215 

During the Crusades — Da-vid Ben Meshullam 215 

During the Crusades — Hillel Ben Jacob 216 

During the Crusades — E. li. Plumptre 217 

During the Crusades — Anonymous 218 

During the Crusades — Ezra Ben Tanhum 219 

During the Crusades — Kalonymus Ben Judah 219 

Israel Mocked — Anonymous 220 

The Massacre of the Jews at York — Marion and Cclia 

Moss 221 

The Harvesting of the Roses — Menahem Ben Jacob.. 226 

A Martyr's Death — Menahem Ben Jacob 226 

The Jewish Martyr — Moss Marks 226 

A Song of Redemption — Solomon Ibn Gabirol {trans- 
lated by Nina Dai'is) 229 

Jehuda Ben Halevy — Heinrich Heine {translated by 

Margaret Armour) 231 

To Judah Ha-Levi — M. L. R. Breslar 236 

How Long ? — Judah Ha-Levi 237 

Back, My Soul — Judah Ha-Levi {translated by M. 

Simon) 237 

Oh! City of the World — Judah Ha-Levi {translated 

by Kate Magnus) 238 

The Immortality of Israel — Judah Ha-Levi {trans- 
lated by Israel Cohen) 238 

The Pride of a Jew — Judah Ha-Levi {translated by 

Israel Cohen) 239 

The Lord Is My Portion — Judah Ha-Levi 239 

My Heart Is in the East — Judah Ha-Levi {translated 

by H. Pereira Mendes) 240 

Separation — Judah Ha-Levi 240 

"iROM Thee to Thee" — Solomon Ibn Gabirol {irans- 

lated by I. A.) 241 

The Cry of Israel — Solomon Ibn Gabirol {translated 

by Solomon Solis Cohen) 241 

Soul, with Storms Beset — Solomon Ibn Gabirol 

{translated by Alice Lucas) 242 

The Dance of Death — Santob de Carrion 244 

Song of the Spanish Jews — Grace Aguilar 245 

1 Will Not Have You Think Me Less — Santob de Cc:r- 

rion 246 

Why Should I Wander Sadly? — Susskind von Trim- 
berg 248 

Sonnet — Immanuel Ben Solomon of Rome 248 

XXX 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Sonnet — Rachel Morpurgo 249 

Sonnet — Sara Copia Sullatn 249 

Friendship — Santob de Carrion 250 



IV. THE JEWISH YEAR 

The Spirit of the Sabbath — Isidore G. Ascher 253 

Princess Sabbath — Heinrich Heine {translated by Mar- 
garet Armour) - 253 

The Sabbath Lamp — Grace Aguilar 258 

Blessing the Lights — Alter Abelson 260 

Song for Friday Night — Isidore Myers 261 

The Hebrew's Friday Night — Anonymous 263 

Sabbath Hymn — Solomon Alkabiz 265 

Come, My Beloved — M. M 266 

The Sabbath Eve — Samuel Augustus Willoughby Duf- 

field 267 

Friday Night — Miriam Del Banco 268 

Friday Night — Isidore G. Ascher 269 

Sabbath Hymn — Aaron Cohen 270 

The Sabbath— A'/T/fl Davis 270 

Sabbath — Alter Abelson 271 

The Day of Rest — Gustav Gottheil 272 

When Is the Jew in Paradise ? — Joseph Leiser 272 

Sabbath Thoughts — Grace Aguilar 273 

God of the World — Israel N agar a {translated by 

Israel Abrahams) 274 

A Sabbath of Rest — Attributed to Isaac Luria {trans- 
lated by Nina Dai'is) 275 

Hymn for the Conclusion of the Sabbath — Alice 

Lucas 276 

The Twin Stars — Joel Blau {translated by Joel Blau) . 277 
The Twin Stars — Joel Blau {translated by George 

Alexander Kohut) 278 

The Sabbath Day — Kiddush and Habdalah — Anony- 
mous 278 

The Outgoing of Sabbath — Alter Abelson 279 

The Last Sabbath Light — H. Rosenblatt {translated 

by Leah W . Leonard) 280 

Selichoth — Alter Abelson 280 

The Turn of the Years — //. B. Friedlander 282 

Into the Tomb of Ages Past — Penina Mo'ise 283 

Rosh-Hashanah — Joseph K. For an 284 

New YEAR^Florence IVeisberg 285 

5666 — New Year — 1905 — Jacob Klein 285 

Shofar Echoes — Annette Kohn 286 

KoL Nidre — M. Osias 287 

xxxi 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

KoL NiDRE — Joseph Leiser 288 

KiPPUR — Reheka/i liyneman 291 

Day of Atonement — AnoTiymous 292 

YoM KiPPUR — George Alexander Kohut 293 

Prayer for the Day of Atonement — George Alexan- 
der Kohut 293 

YoM KiPPUR — Gustav Gotfheil 293 

The White and Scarlet Thread — Anonymous 294 

After Yom Kippur — Cora JVilhurn 294 

Palms and Myrtles — Eleazar I%alir {translated by 

Aliee Lucas) 296 

The Tabernacle — Rose Emma Collins 296 

SuccoTH — M. M 297 

A Tabernacle Thought — Israel Zangioill 298 

A SuccoTH Hymn — Joseph Leiser 299 

SiMCHAS ToRAH — Morris Rosenfeld 300 

SiMCHAS ToRAH — J. L. Gordon 301 

SiMCHAS ToRAH — C. Da'uid Matt 303 

Judas Maccabeus — Henry Snoicman 305 

The Maccabean — Horace M. Kail en 305 

The Maccabean Call — Emil G. Hirsch 306 

The Maccabees — Miriam Myers 307 

The Banner of the Jew — Emma Lazarus . . * 309 

The Jewish Mother and Her Sons before Antiochus 

— R. Manahan 310 

A Tale from the Talmud — William Dearness 313 

Song of Judas Maccabeus before the Battle of Mas- 

PHA — Rebekah Hyneman 317 

The Miraculous Oil — Caroline Deutsch 318 

The Feast of Lights — Emma Lazarus 319 

Chanukah Hymn — Adolph LIuebsch 321 

Golden Lights for Chanukah — Janie Jacobson 321 

The Eight Chanukah Lights — Isidore Myers 322 

Chanukah Lights — M. M 323 

Chanukah Lights — Harold Debrest 324 

Chanukah Lights — P. M. Raskin 325 

Legendary Lights — Alter Abelson 326 

Chanukah — Marion Hartog 327 

Chanukah in Russia, 1905 — E. L. Levetus 328 

Chanukah — Margaret Fireman 329 

Chanukah — Cecilia G. Gerson 329 

Mo'oz TsuR Yeshu'osi — {translated by Solomon Solis 

Cohen) 330 

Chanukah — Louis Stern 332 

Vashti — Helen Hunt Jackson 333 

A Purim Poem — Isabella R. Hess 334 

Esther — Florence Weisberg 335 

Maid of Persia — Harry JVciss 335 

Esther — Helen Hunt Jackson 336 

xxxil 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PuRiM — Label 337 

In Shushan — E. Yancey Cohen 338 

PuRiM — Myrtilla E. Mitchell 340 

MoRDECAi — Anonymous 343 

MoRDECAi — Helen Hunt Jackson 344 

PuRiM — C. Da^nd Matt 345 

A PuRiM Retrospect — IV. S. Hoivard 346 

PuRiM, 1900 — Alice D. Braham 348 

The Search for Leaven — Alter Abclson 349 

The Moral of It — Samuel Gordon 350 

The Seder — J. F 352 

Seder-Night — Israel Zangivill 353 

Passover — Abram S. Isaacs 354 

A Passover Hymn from the Haggada — J. F 355 

Passover — Deborah Klcinert Janoivitz 355 

By the Red Sea — Jtidah Ha-Levi {translated by Alice 

Lucas) 356 

The All Father's Word — Emily Solis-Cohen, Jr 358 

The Feast of Freedom — P. M. Raskin 358 

Pesach Le'Osid — Anonymous 360 

The Omer — M. M 361 

Sfere — Morris Rosenfeld 361 

The Covenant of Sinai — Joseph Leiser 362 

What Praise Is on Our Lips? — Joseph Leiser 364 

The Heavenly Light — Max Meyerhardt 365 

Pentecost — Annette Kohn 366 

The Fast of Tebeth — Joseph Bar Samuel Tob Elem 

[translated by Nina Davis) 369 

Lines for the Ninth of Ab — Solomon Soils Cohen.... 370 
Ode to Zion — Judah Ha-Levi {translated by Alice 

Lucas) 371 

Ode to Zion — Judah Ha-Le'vi {translated by Nina 

Davis) 374 

In Memoriam, Ninth of Ab — Ben Avrom 377 

A Thought for the Ninth of Ab — Hadassah 378 



V. LITURGICAL 

Hymn of Unity — Samuel Ben Kalonymus 381 

The Hymn of Glory — Judah He-Hasid {translated by 

Israel Zangiuill) 381 

The Hymn of Glory — Translated by I. A 384 

Hymn of Glory — Translated by Alice Lucas 386 

The Kaddish— /F. W. 387 

Ode on Chazanuth — Nina Davis 389 

Adon Olam — D. A. De Sola 390 

Adon Olam — Israel Zangivill 390 

xxxiii 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Adon Olam — George Borrow 391 

Paraphrase of Adon Olam — David Nunes Carvalho . . 393 

Adon Olam — Anonymous 393 

Adon Olam — Jessie E. Sampler 394 

Adon Olam — Israel Gollancz 395 

Our Creed — J. Leonard Levy 395 

Yigdal — Israel Zangidll 397 

Yigdal — Florence Ahronsherg 398 

Yigdal — Philip Abraham 399 

Yigdal — Alice Lucas 401 

The Mezuzah — Alter Abelson 402 

Tephillin — Aaron Schaffer 403 

Morning Song — Henry S. Jacobs 404 

Morning Song — Solomon Ibn Gabirol {translated by 

Alice Lucas) • 4^5 

Song of Israel to God — Judah Ha-Levi {translated by 

Alice Lucas) 4^5 

Morning Invocation — Solomon Ibn Gabirol 406 

Night Prayer — Florence JVcisberg 406 

Night Prayer — Alice Lucas 407 

Night Prayer — Alice Lucas 408 , 

NiSHMAS — Florence Weisbcrg 408 

Nishmas — Penina Mo'ise 409 

Adoration — David Levy 410 

The Benediction — Harry Weiss • 410 

Grace after Meals — Anonymous {translated by Alice 

Lucas) 411 

Man, the Image of God — Penina Mo'ise 413 

Grace for the Sabbath — Alice Lucas 414 

Faith — Alice Lucas 4^5 

Rude Are the Tabernacles Now — Anonymous 415 

God Is Nigh to Contrite Hearts — David Levy 416 

A Prayer — Alice Lucas 4^7 

A Prayer — V. H. Friedlander 418 

Sacred Lyric — Isidore G. Ascher 418 

The Voice of God— M. M 4^9 

Prayer — Solomon Ibn Gabirol 420 

Hope for the Salvation of the Lord — Abraham Ibn 

Ezra 420 

God Everywhere — Abraham Ibn Ezra {translated by 

D. E. de L.) 420 

The Living God — Abraham Ibn Ezra {translated by 

Alice Lucas) 421 

A Song of Life — Abraham Ibn Ezra {translated by E. 

N. A.) 422 

God, Whom Shall I Compare to Thee? — Judah Ha- 

Levt {translated by Alice Lucas) 424 

O Lord, I Call on Thee — Abraham Ibn Ezra 425 

Lord, Thou Great Jehovah — Albert Frank Hoffmann. 426 

xxxiv 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Lord, Do Thou Guide Me — Alice Lucas 427 

ScNG OF THE Devv — Translated ly Solomon Solu Cohen 428 
And the Heavens Shall Yield Their Dew — Solomon 

11)71 Gabirol {translated by Solomon Soils Cohen) . . 428 
The Burning of the Law — Meir of Rothenherg {trans- 
lated by Nina Davis) 430 

The Royal Crown — Israel Abrahams 434 

New Year Hymn — Joseph Krauskopf 435 

The Royal Crown — Solomon Ibn Gabirol {translated 

by Rebecca A. Altman) 435 

Servant of God — Judah Ha-Levi {translated by Israel 

Zanffivill) 436 

Yea, More than They — Alice Lucas 438 

Adonai Melech — Translated by Solomon Solis Cohen. 438 
Thee I Will Seek — Simeon Ben Isaac Ben Abun 

{translated by Israel Zangivill) 439 

Even as the Daily Offering — Solomon Ben Abun 

{translated by Alice Lucas) 442 

Supplication — Jose Ben Jose 443 

Lo! As THE Potter Mouldeth — Elsie Dams 444 

Happy He Who Saw of Old — Solomon Ibn Gabirol 

{translated by Alice Lucas) 445 

The Lifting of Mine Hands — Mordecai Ben Shabbe- 

thai {translated by Nina Davis) 447 

Since We Be Standing — Ephraim Ben Isaac {translated 

by Nina Davis ) 449 

I Am the Suppliant — Baruch Ben Samuel {translated 

by Nina Davis) 451 

All the World Shall Come to Serve Thee — Israel 

Zangivill 453 

In the Height and Depth of His Burning — Meshullam 

Ben Kalonymus {translated by Israel Zangivill) . . 454 
Lord, I Remember — Mordecai Ben Shabbethai {trans- 
lated by Nina Davis) 456 



VI. NATIONAL 

Hatikvah — A Song of Hope — Naphtali Herz Imber 

{translated by Henry Snozvman) 459 

Zionist Marching Song — Naphtali Herz Imber {trans- 
lated by Israel Zangvoill) 460 

Onward — J. Manicoff 462 

On ! — George Benedict 463 

To THE Glory of Jerusalem — Judah Ha-Levi 464 

Jerusalem — P. C. L 465 

ZiON — Louis Federleicht 466 

A Song of Zion — Walter Vernon-Epstein 467 

The Shoshanah — George E. Chodovjsky 469 

XXXV 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Return — R. E. 1 471 

On to tpie Promised Land — Rufiis Learsi 471 

To ZiON— M. B. S 472 

Zionism — Samuel Roth 473 

Wandering — Samuel Roth 473 

The Promised Land — Jessie E. Sampler 474 

Jerusalem — John Kebble Hervey 476 

The Wailing Place in Jerusalem — Louis Federleicht. 478 

Lament of the Daughters of Zion — J. F 479 

Longing for Jerusalem — Judah Ha-Levi {translated by 

Emma Lazarus) 481 

Awakening — Jessie E. Sampler 481 

Daughter of Zion — Anonymous 482 

But Who Shall See ? — Thomas Moore 482 

The Latter Day — Thomas Hastings 483 

"And Zion Be the Glory Yet" — Anonymous 483 

The Harp of Zion — James Willis 484 

The Restoration of Israel — James Montgomery 485 

Israel's God — Laivrence Cohen 486 

He Watcpieth over Israel — Solomon L. Long 486 

'Tis TO the East — Anonymous 487 

Ee-Chovoud — S. R. Hirsch 488 

The Dawn of Hope — C Pessels 488 

The Jews Weeping in Jerusalem — James Wallis East- 
burn 489 

Dying in Jerusalem — Thomas Ragg 490 

When I Think of Thee, O Zion — John D. Nussbaum. 491 

Redemption — Anonymous 492 

Good Tidings to Zion — Thomas Kelly 493 

A Cry for Zion — L. Smirnozv 493 

A Song of Zion — Carroll Ryan 495 

Zionism — Miriam Blausteiji 496 

Zionism — Herbert N, Carson 496 

Rallying Song — Jessie E. Sampter 497 

In the Land of Our Fathers — K. L. Sillman 498 

On to the East — NapJitali Herz Imber {translated by 

Rebecca A. Altman) 498 

The Cedars of Lebanon — Henry Schnittkind 499 

O Sweet Anemones ! — Jessie E. Sampter 500 

Zion — Eugene Kohn 501 

The Awakening of Israel — Anonymous 502 

Sing unto God a New Song — Eugene Kohn 503 

In Exile — Morris Rosenfetd {translated by Isidore 

Myers) 503 

Psalm CXXVI— /. R. B 504 

Zionism — Joseph Leiser 505 

Theodore Herzl — Felix N. Gerson 505 

To Theodore Herzl— Gust a'v Gottheil {translated by 

George Alexander Kohut) 506 

xxxvi 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Theodore Herzl — Israel Zangivill 507 

Theodore Herzl — Harry Myers 507 

The Poet's Spirit — Joseph Fitzpatrick 508 

A Hymn of Zion — Joel Blau 509 



VII. THE MODERN PERIOD 

Bar Kochba — Emma Lazarus 513 

The Jewish Exile — Leon Hi'i/iner 513 

The Jewish Pilgrim — Frances Broivne 515 

The Arch of Titus — Llarry Wolfsolin {translated by 

Horace M. Kali en) 517 

Tourist and Cicerone — Ludivig August Frankl {trans- 
lated by Henry Cohen) 517 

Judea — Charles M. Wallington 519 

The Tombs of the Fathers — James Montgomery 519 

The Wandering Jew — David Levi 522 

The Sentinel of the Ages — Ibbie McColm Wilson.... 523 

Before Battle — Samuel Roth 528 

The Jew — George Alfred Toivnsend 529 

The Everlasting Jew^ — Henry B. Sommer 530 

Israel — Ida Goldsmith Mortis 531 

Israel Forsaken — Charles Leon Gumpert 531 

Puissance of the Jew — C. IV. JVynne 533 

Honor- of the Jews — William Hod son 533 

Mock On! Mock On! — William Blake 534 

"His People" — Anonymous 534 

The Jew is True — Joaquin Miller 535 

O Israel — Robert Loveman 536 

The Everlasting Jew — Percy Bysshe Shelley 537 

Jews — Anonymous 538 

Israel's Spiritual Lamp — George Eliot 538 

The Spirit of Hebraism — Harry Wolfsohn {translated 

by H. B. Ehrmann) 539 

Zion's Universal Temple — Harry Weiss 540 

A Song of Israel — /. H. Cuthbert 541 

The Fated Race — Anonymous 542 

People of Zion — Marie Harrold Garrison 543 

Israel's Mission — Eve Davieson 543 

To Young Israel — M. Osias 545 

The Mystic Tie — Max Meyer hardt 546 

My Heritage — Cora Wilburn 547 

Shema-Yisroel-Adonai-Elohenu-Adonai-Echod — Nathan 

Bernstein 548 

Judaeis Vita Aeterna — Charles N. Lurie 549 

"The Children of the Pale" — Anonymous 550 

Judah — George R. Du Bois 551 

The Chosen Ones of Israel — Park Benjamin 552 

xxxvii 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Star of Discontent — X 553 

They Call Us Jews — Milton Goldsmith 553 

The Jew's Appeal to the Christian — J. W. Blen- 

co^ve, Jr 555 

The Jew to Jesus — Florence Kiper Frank 557 

Moses and Jesus — Israel Zangivill 557 

Lines to an Anti-Semite — Edivard Sydney Tybee 558 

I Would Reply — Milton Goldsmith 559 

"Only a Jew"— F. H 560 

Thou Art a Jew — /. N. L 561 

Israel — Israel Zangzuill 563 

Israel — Max Meyerhardt 564 

The Jews of England (1290-1902) — Israel Zang^vill . . 566 

The Right of Asylujh — Stephen Phillips 567 

The Jewish Soldier — Alice Lucas 567 

Israel and Columbia — John J. McCabe 568 

The Jew in America — Felix N. Gerson 570 

The Ghetto-Jew — Rufus Learsi 572 

The Melting Pot — Berton Braley 573 

A Call to the Builders — Helen Gray Cone 574 

O Long the Way — Morris Rosenfeld 575 

The Candle Seller — Morris Rosenfeld 575 

The Jewish May — Morris Rosenfeld 577 

"The Light in the Eyes'' — Oscar Loeb 581 

"Yes, He's a Jew" — John Paul Cosgrave 582 

The Jew to the Gentile — Sara Messing Stern 584 

The Yellow Badge — Ruth Schechter Alexander 585 

A Tribute to the Jews — Rufus C. Hopkins 587 

At Ellis Island — Margaret Chandler Aldrich 590 

Ellis Island — James Oppenhcim 591 

At the Gate — Nathan F. Spielvogel 593 

The Magic Words — Melvin G. Winstock 594 

Shema Yisrael Adonay-Elohainu Adonay-Echod — Ib- 

bie McColm Wilson 595 

Be Thou a Jew — Samuel E. Loveman 596 

The Chosen — Elizabeth McMurtrie Dinividdie 596 

God's Chosen People — Adapted by Joel Blau 598 

Our Password — Isidore G. Ascher 599 

Only a Jew — David Banks Sickles 599 

"Jew" — George Faux Bacon 600 

Recognition — Miriam Teichner 601 

Is It True ? — Marie Flarrold Garrison 602 

In the Hour of Need — Leto 603 

The Little Jew — Dinah Maria Mulock Craik 604 

Only a Jew — Anonymous 607 

Holy Cross Day — Robert Browning 609 

The Guardian of the Red Disk — Emma Lazarus 614 

Rabbi Ben Ezra — Robert Bro'zvning 615 

The Angel — Dorothy S. Silverman 616 

xxxviii 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A Legend — Jehoash {translated by Ellas Lieberman) . . 617 

The Rabbi's Song — Rudyard Kipling 617 

A Sonnet — M. L. R. Breslar 618 

The Hebrew Mind — M. L. R. Breslar 618 

Who Gives in Love — Isidor Wise 619 

An Invocation — Isidore G. Ascher 619 

Adas Israel — M. Beyer 621 

Poetry — Louis Untermeyer 622 

Our Heritage — Isidore G. Ascher 623 

Israel's Heritage — Ida Goldsmith Morris 623 

Fin de Siecle — Anonymous 624 

Hope and Faith — Isaac Leib Perez {translated by 

Henry Goodman) 625 

Not by Power — Mary M. Cohen 625 

Lines — Alice Rhine 626 

The Glory of God — Rebekah Hyneman 627 

Lessons of the Past — Harry Weiss 627 

RoDEF Shalom — W. G. Skillman 628 

The New Temple — Louis Marshall 629 

Consecration Hymn — R. Wagner 630 

The Kingdom of God — Edivard BuUi-er Lytton 631 

Rebecca's Hymn — Sir Walter Scott 631 

A Jewish Family — William Wordsiuorth 632 

Rebecca, the Jewess — Clark B. Cochrane 634 

The American Jewess — Albert Ulmann 634 

Jewess — Joaquin Miller 635 

The Jewess — Allan Davis 636 

Orienfale — William Henley 636 

An Oriental Maiden — J. O. Jenkyns 637 

The Maid of the Ghetto — Anonymous 6^7 

The Jewish Mother — A Daughter of Judah 638 

Like unto Sharon's Roses — Rufus Learsi 639 

"I Saw a Maiden Sweet and Fair" — Rufus Learsi 639 

Lines to a Jewish Child — C. D 640 

Rachel — Mattheiv Arnold 640 

Rachel — Anonymous 642 

Kalich, Inheritor of Tragedy — Ripley D. Sand -rs ... . 643 

To the Memory of Grace Aguilar — Anonymous 6^4 

Moses Mendelssohn — Miriam Del Banco 645 

Heine — A. R. Aldrich 648 

Heine — George Sylvester Viereck 648 

Heinrich Heine — Ludivig Leivisohn 649 

To Heinrich Heine — George Alexander Kohut 6'5o 

Ernest Ren an — Mary Darmesteter 650 

The Jews' Cemetery on the Lido — John Addington 

Symonds 651 

The Jewish Cemetery at Newport — Henry Wadsivorth 

Longfellonv 651 

France's Shame — B. B. Usher 653 

xxxix 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

To Dreyfus Vindicated — Robert Underivood Johnson. 654 

Dreyfus — Edivin Markham 655 

Dreyfus — Florence Earle Coates 656 

Let Us Forget — K. M 657 

The God of Israel — C. M. KoJian 657 

The Jews in Russia — Edivard Doyle 659 

On the Russian Persecution of the Jews — Algernon 

Charles Sivinbiirne 659 

Russia and the Jews — Punch 660 

The Kishineff Massacre — Rose Strauss 660 

On the Massacre — Chayim Nachman Byalik 660 

God and His Martyrs — Chayim Nachman Byalik 661 

The Jewish Martyrs — fV. V. B 662 

The Persecuted Jew — Stephen Taylor Dekins 663 

In the Name of Jesus of Nazareth — Anonymous 663 

How Long ? — Israel Cohen 664 

Israel in Russia — Arthur Guiterman 665 

The Massacre of the Jews — R. A. Levy 666 

How Long, O Lord? — Elias Lieberman 668 

In Exile — Emma Lazarus 669 

A Cry from Russia — Her mine Schived 671 

To Russia — Joaquin Miller 672 

The Slaughter of the Jews — A. J. Water house 673 

The Crowing of the Red Cock — Emma Lazarus 675 

A Hymn for the Relief of Israel — Canon Jenkins . . . . 676 

To THE Czar — a Prophecy — Ida (Mrs. Isidor) Straus. 677 

"To Forgive Is Divine"— M. L. R. Breslar 678 

"Blood" v. "Bullion" — Punch 679 

The Jews of Bucharest — Edivard Sydney Tybee 681 

To Carmen Sylva (Queen of Roumania) — Emma 

Lazarus 683 

Lines on Carmen Sylva — Emma Lazarus 684 

The Russian Jewish Rabbi — Translated by Herman 

Bernstein 685 

"Mai-Ko-Mashma-Lon" — Abraham Raisin {translated by 

Henry Greenfield) 688 

The Jewish Soldier — Alice Lucas 689 

B'nai B'rith — Miriam Del Banco 691 

B'nai B'rith — Rosa Strauss 693 

On Attempting to Convert the Jews to Christianity 

— Anonymous 694 

Autumn Songs — S. Frug {translated by Alice Stone 

Blackiuell) 696 

Feldmesten or Measuring the Graves — Alter Abelson. 698 

Nature and the Poet — 5". Frug 699 

On the Grave of Michael Gordon — S. Frug 700 

Sand and Stars — S. Frug 700 

The False Hope — Horace M. Kail en 701 

Out of the Depths — Joseph Jasin 702 

xl 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

As THE Stars and the Sands — S. Frug {translated by 

Joseph Jasin) 703 

"... Whom You Are to Blame" — P. M. Raskin 704 

Side by Side — Isabella R. Hess 706 

The Young Rabbi — E. C. L. Broivne 707 

" .-. . And Give Thee Peace" — Florence Weisberg 708 

Twenty-one Years of Rescue Work — Alice Lucas 708 

A Call to Israel — Cora Wilburn 709 

Meditations at Twilight — Joseph Leiser 711 

The New Jewish Hospital at Hamburg — Heinrich 

Heine 713 

The Rose of Sharon — Harry Weiss 713 

The Age of Toleration — Arthur Upton 715 

Intolerance — Ray Trurn Nathan 715 

They Tell Me — Ezekiel Leavitt (translated by Alice 

Stone Blackiuell) 716 

Gifts — Emma Lazarus 717 

Hebrew Cradle Song — Ezekiel Leamtt {translated by 

Alice Stone Black=well) . 718 

Jewish Lullaby — Eugene Field 719 

Patriotism — Translated by Robert Necdham Cust 720 

Optimism — /, Z. Josephson 721 

To My Lyre — Joseph Masscl 721 

To Walter Lionel de Rothschild on His Bar Mitzvah 

— Louis B. Abrahams 721 

Sonnet — Canon Jenkins 723 

Sir Moses Montefiore — E. Yancey Cohen 723 

Sir Moses Montefiore — Miriam Del Banco 723 

Sir Moses Montefiore — Punch 723 

Sir Moses Montefiore — Louis Meycrhardt 724 

Sir Moses Montefiore — Ambrose Bicrce 724 

Jesse Seligman — Noah Davis 725 

Benjamin Artom — Re Henry 726 

Aaron Levy Green — Anonymous 727 

Baroness de Rothschild — Emily Marion Harris 727 

Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield — Punch.... 728 

Peace — and Honor — Herman C. Meri-vale 730 

Leopold Zunz — J. F 733 

Moritz Steinschneider — George Alexander Kohut 733 

Simeon Singer — John Chapman 733 

My Father's Bible — George Alexander Kohut 734 

David Kaufmann — George Alexander Kohut 735 

GusTAV GoTTHEiL — George Alexander Kohut 735 

Sonnet — George Alexander Kohut 736 

Solomon Schechter. — Alter Abelson 736 

Emma Lazarus — Richard Watson Gilder 737 

Emma Lazarus — Richard Watson Gilder 738 

Under No Skies but Ours — Helen Gray Cone 738 

Emma Lazarus — Allan Eastman Cross 741 

xli 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Emma Lazarus — Minot Judson Savage 742 

Emma Lazarus — James Maurice Thompson 742 

Emma Lazarus — Henry Cohen 743 

Joseph Joachim — Robert Bridges 744 

Frederic David Mocatta — James Meiv 744 

Mrs. Ellis A. Franklin — Anonymous 745 

Oscar Cohen — H. B. Gayfer 745 

Leo N. Levi — George Alexander Kohut 746 

Esther J. Ruskay — George Alexander Kohut 746 

Joseph Mayor Asher — George Alexander Kohut 747 

Louis Loeb — Louis Marshall 747 

Josef Israels — Elias Lieberman 748 

Phedre — Oscar Wilde 749 

Mayer Sulzberger — Felix N. Gerson 749 

Isaac M. Wise — Walter Hurt 751 

Isaac M. Wise — Ida Goldsmith Morris 752 

Isaac M. Wise — Edna Dean Proctor 753 

Isaac M. Wise — Harry Weiss 754 

Isaac M. Wise — Albert Frank Hoffmann 755 

Ida Straus — Alter Abelson 757 

Ida Straus — Bernard Gruenstein 757 

Ida Straus — Anne P. L. Field 758 

Ida Straus — Solomon Solis Cohen 758 

Ida Straus — Corinne Roosevelt Robinson 759 

Julia Richman — Helen Gray Cone 759 

Myer Davis — Isaac Lazaroivich 760 

Simon Wolf — Felix N. Gerson 760 

To Simon Wolf — George Alexander Kohut 761 

To Simon Wolf on His Eightieth Birthday — George 

Alexander Kohut 761 



VIII. IN LIGHTER VEIN 

The Stamp of Civilization — Max Nordau {translated 

by J. F.) 765 

Confidence — Max Nordau {translated by J. F.) 765 

EiN Uralter Spruch — Heinrich Heine 765 

The Vision of His People — Leon Gordon 766 

Israelite — Santob de Carrion 766 

Between Two Stools — John Heath 767 

The Rabbi's Present — Anonymous 767 

An Epitaph — Ben Jacob {translated by Joseph Chotz- 

ner) 767 

All Things to All Men — Ben Joseph Palquera 

{translated by Joseph Chotzner) 768 

The Miser — Ben Zed {translated by Joseph Chotzner) 768 
The Wife's Treasure— .Sa^iw^ Baring-Gould 768 

xlii 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Water Song — Solomon Ibn Gabriol {translated by 

Israel Abrahams) 770 

Water Song — Solomon Ibn Gabirol {translated by 

Joseph Chotzner) 771 

Wine Song — Judah Al-Harizi {translated by I. A.) . . . . 'j-jz 

The Ballad of Ephron, Prince of Topers — Immanuel 
Ben Solomon of Rome {translated by Solomon 
Solis Cohen) 773 

Index to First Lines 779 

Index to Titles 796 

Index to Authors 814 

Index to Translators 820 



xliii 



I 

BIBLICAL AND POST- 
BIBLICAL 



The Bible 

'T'HIS book — this holy book, on every line 
Marked with the seal of high divinity, 
On every leaf bedew'd with drops of love 
Divine ; . . . this ray of sacred light, 
This lamp from ofE the everlasting throne 
Mercy took down, and in the night of Time 
Stood , . . evermore beseeching men with tears 
And earnest sighs, to read, believe and live. 

Anonymous. 

The Bible 

T AMP of my feet, whereby we trace 
Our path, when w^ont to stray ! 
Stream from the fount of heavenly grace 
Brook by the traveller's way ! 

Bread of our souls, whereon we feed, 

True manna from on high ! 
Our guide and chart, wherein we read 

Of realms beyond the sky. 

Pillar of fire through watches dark. 

Or radiant cloud by day ! 
When waves would whelm our tossing bark, 

Our anchor and our stay! 

Richard Barton. 
The Bible 

A S to an ancient temple 
^~^ Whose vast proportions tower 
With summit inaccessible 
Among the stars of Heaven ; 
While the resistless Ocean 
Of peoples and of cities 
Breaks at its feet in foam. 
Work that a hundred ages 
Hallow ; I bow to Thee. 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

From out thy mighty bosom 
Rise hymns sublime, and melodies 
Like to the Heavens singing 
Praises to their Creator; 
While at the sound, an ecstasy, 
A trance, fills all my being 
With terror and with awe — 
I feel my proud heart thrilling 
With throbs of holy pride. 

Oh! come, Thou high, beneficent 

Heritage of my fathers. 

Our country, altar, prophet! 

Thou art our all. Thou only. 

Through doubt, through pain, through outrage, 

Through pangs of dissolution 

Wringing our tortured hearts; 

Come, open the rosy portals 

Of hope to* us once more ! 

In Thee, eternal, limitless. 
The Earth is bound to Heaven; 
The ages in Immensity 
Are one in Thine infinity; 
Rapt by Thy power, the Spirit 
Springs ever high and higher 
Through care and grief and love, 
Groans in mysterious ecstasy, 
Exults In bitter pain. 

Idylls of love and tenderness. 
Home jo3's and pure affections. 
Voices of Hope unconquered 
By torture or by agony. 
Austere and fruitful suffering. 
Terror and doubt and faith, 
Oh! for the w^hole Creation 
A voice Is found in Thee. 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Like an Inspired Sib}! 
Thou thunderest in anger, 
Tyre, Babylon, demolished, 
Vanish with throne and altar; 
Thou singest, Heaven lets open, 
Mankind awakes to harmony 
And holy truth and peace ; 
Like blessed springs descending, 
Thou fillest all the world. 

Ah me! what countless miseries, 
What tears all unregarded 
Hast Thou consoled and softened 
With gentle voice and holy ! 
How many hearts that struggle 
With doubt, remorse, anxiety, 
With all the woes of ages. 
Dost Thou, on ample pinions, 
Lift purified to Heaven ! 

David Levi. 



The Light and Glory of the World 

'T'HE Spirit breathes upon the word, 
"*• And brings the truth to sight; 

Precepts and promises afford 
A sanctifying light. 

A glory gilds the sacred page. 

Majestic like the sun ; 
It gives a light to every age, — 

It gives, but borrow^s none. 

The hand that gave It still supplies 
The gracious light and heat ; 

His truths upon the nations rise, — 
They rise, but never set. 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Let everlasting thanks be thine, 

For such a bright display, 
As makes a world of darkness shine 

With beams of heavenly day. 

* * * 

William Cowper. 



The Bible 

DLESSED Bible! how I love it! 

How it doth my bosom cheer! 
What hath earth like this to covet ? 

O, what stores of wealth are here! 
Man was lost and doomed to sorrow; 

Not one ray of light or bliss 
Could he from earth's treasures borrow, 

'Till his way was cheered by this ? 

Yes, ril to my bosom press thee, 

Precious Word, I'll hide thee here; 
Sure my very heart will bless thee, 

For thou ever saj^est ''good cheer" : 
Speak, my heart, and tell thy ponderings. 

Tell how far thy rovings led, 
When This Book brought back thy wanderings, 

Speaking life as from the dead. 

Yes, sweet Bible! I will hide thee 

Deep, yes, deeper in this heart ; 
Thou, through all my life will guide me, 

And in death we will not part. 
Part in death? No! never! never! 

Through death's vale I'll lean on thee; 
Then, in worlds above, for ever. 

Sweeter still thy truths shall be! 

Phoebe Palmer. 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 



The PVritten Word 

nnHE starry firmament on high, 
**■ And all the glories of the sky, 
Yet shine not to Thy praise, O Lord, 
So brightly as Thy written word. 

The hopes that holy word supplies, 
Its truths divine and precepts wise. 
In each a heavenly beam I see, 
And every beam conducts to Thee. 

When, taught by painful proof to know 
That all is vanity below, 
The sinner roams from comfort far, 
And looks in vain for sun or star; 

Soft gleaming then those lights divine. 
Through all the cheerless darkness shine, 
And sweetly to the ravished eye 
Disclose the dayspring from on high. 

Almighty Lord, the sun shall fail. 
The moon forget her nightly tale, 
And deepest silence hush on high, 
The radiant chorus of the sky; 

But, fixed for everlasting years, 
Unmoved amid the wreck of spheres. 
Thy word shall shine in cloudless day, 
When heaven and earth have passed aw^ay. 

Sir Robert Grant. 



The Book of God 

'T'HY thoughts are here, my God, 

Expressed in words divine, 
The utterance of heavenly lips 
In every sacred line. 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Across the ages they 

Have reached us from afar, 
Than the bright gold more golden they, 

Purer than purest star. 

More durable they stand 

Than the eternal hills; 
Far sweeter and more musical 

Than music of earth's rills. 

Fairer in their fair hues, 

Than the fresh flowers of earth, 

More fragrant than the fragrant climes 
Where odors have their birth. 

Each word of thine a gem 

From the celestial mines, 
A sunbeam from that holy heaven 

Where holy sunlight shines. 

Thine, Thine, this book, though given 
In man's poor human speech, 

Telling of things unseen, unheard, 
Beyond all human reach. 

No strength it craves or needs. 
From this world's wisdoni vain; 

No filling up from human wells, 
Or sublunary rain. 

No light from sons of time, 

Nor brilliance from its gold; 
It sparkles with its own glad light, 

As in the ages old. 

A thousand hammers keen. 

With fiery force and strain. 
Brought down on it in rage and hate, 

Have struck this gem in vain. 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Against this sea-swept rock, 
Ten thousand storms their will 

Of foam and rage have wildly spent," 
It lifts its calm face still. 

It standeth and will stand, 

Without or change or age, 
The word of majesty and light. 

The church's heritage. 

HORATIUS BONAR. 



The Old Book 

r\ BOOK of books, and friend of friends alone, 
^^ How deep the debt of gratitude to thee ! 
For every human ill thou hast a charm. 
With fragrance fresh as in Judaean days. 
How clear the message that thy pages bring 
To rich and poor, to old and young the same, 
Forever sounding 'mid the centuries: — 
That God's our father, tender, just and true. 
And we His children all, both bond and free 
Though clouds and darkness meet us on the way, 
Thy radiant light is ever shining there. 

Abram S. Isaacs. 



Israel and His Book 

A N age-worn wanderer, pale with thought and tears, 

"^"^ With heart heroic and prophetic look, 

Comes clasping to his breast the Sacred Book — 

The amulet of Israel through the years! 

''Behold!" he says, "through ages dark with fears, 
Through travail and through miseries that shook 
The soul of Judah, this he ne'er forsook. 

It is his Book! — Therein his God appears!" 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

His Book! more glorious with supernal light 
Than all the beacons reared by mortal hands 

Since time first lisped its anguish in the night. 
His Book! That gave a God to all the lands; 

Whose pages shall through us again reveal 

The wondrous promise grief could not conceal! 

Felix N. Gerson. 



The Ha Bible 
A H, T could worship thee ! 

"'*• Thou art a gift a God of love might give; 
For love and hope and joy 

In thy Almighty-written pages live ; — 
The slave w^ho reads shall never crouch again ; 
For, mind-inspired by thee, he bursts bis feeble chain! 

God ! unto thee I kneel. 

And thank thee ! Thou unto my native land — 
Yea, to the outspread earth — 

Hast stretched in love thy everlasting hand, 
And thou hast given earth, and sea, and air — 
Yea, all that heart can ask of good and pure and fair! 

And, Father, thou hast spread 

Before men's eyes this charter of the free, 
That all thy book might read, 

And justice, love, and truth, and liberty. 
The gift w^as unto men, — the giver, God ! 
Thou slave ! it stamps thee man, — go spurn thy weary 
load! 

Thou doubly precious book ! 

Unto thy light what does not Scotland owe: — 
Thou teachest age to die, 

And youth in truth unsullied up to grow! 
In lowly homes a comforter art thou, — 
A sunbeam sent from God, — an everlasting bow! 

Robert Nicoll. 

8 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Fullness of the Bible 

'T'HERE is a lamp whose steady light 
* Guides the poor traveller in the night : — 
'Tis God's own word ! Its beaming ray 
Can turn a midnight into day. 

There is a storehouse of rich fare, 
Supplied with plenty and to spare: — 
'Tis God's own word ! it spreads a feast 
For every hungering, thirsting guest. 

There Is a chart whose tracings show 
The onward course when tempests blow : — 
'Tis God's own word ! There, there is found 
Direction for the homeward bound. 

There is a tree whose leaves impart 
Health to the burdened, contrite heart : — 
'Tis God's own word ! It cures of sin, 
And makes the guilty conscience clean. 

Give me this lamp to light my road ; 
This storehouse for my daily food ; 
Give me this chart for life's rough sea ; 
These healing leaves, this heavenly tree. 

H. J Betts. 



Inspiration of the Bible 

\jr7 HENCE, but from Heaven, could men unskill'd 
^^ in arts, 

In several ages born, in several parts. 
Weave such agreeing truths? or how, or why. 
Should all conspire to treat us with a lie? 
Unask'd their pains, ungrateful their advice, 
Starving their gain, and martyrdom their price. 

If on the book itself we cast our view, 
Concurrent heathens prove the story true: 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The doctrine, miracles; which must convince, 
For Heaven in them appeals to human sense; 
And though they prove not they confirm the cause, 
When what is taught agrees with nature's laws. 

Therefore the style, majestic and divine, 

It speaks no less than God in every line: 

Commanding words; whose force is still the same 

As the first fiat that produc'd our frame. 

All faiths beside, or did by arms ascend ; 

Or sense indulg'd has made mankind their friend : 

This only doctrine does our lusts oppose: 
Unfed by nature's soil, in which it grows; 
Cross to our interests, curbing sense and sin ; 
Oppress'd without, and undermin'd within. 
It thrives through pain ; its own tormentors tires, 
And with a stubborn patience still aspires. 

John Dryden. 



Contents of the Bible 

TF thou art merry, here are airs; 
** If melancholy, here are praj^ers; 
If studious, here are those things writ 
Which may deserve thy ablest wit; 
If hungry, here is food divine; 
If thirsty, nectar, heavenly wine. 

Read, then ; but, first, thyself prepare 
To read with zeal and mark with care ; 
And when thou read'st w^hat here is WTit, 
Let thy best practice second it; 
So twice each precept read shall be — 
First in the book, and next in thee. 

Peter Heylyn. 



lO 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Esteeming the Bible 

•ymS holy book I'd rather own, 
"*■ Than all the gold and gems 
That e'er In monarchs' coffers shone, 
Than all their diadems. 

Nay, were the seas one chrysolite, 

The earth one golden ball. 
And diadems all the stars of night, 

This book outweighs them all. 

Ah, no, the soul ne'er found relief 

In glittering hoards of wealth ; 
Gems dazzle not the eye of grief, 

Gold cannot purchase health. 

But here a blessed balm appears 

To heal the deepest woe, 
And those who read this book In tears, 

Their tears shall cease to flow. 

HORATIUS BONAR. 



Judah^s Hallowed Bards 

I ET those who will hang rapturously o'er 

The flowing eloquence of Plato's page ; 
Repeat, with flashing eyes, the sounds that pour 

From Homer's verse as with a torrent's rage ; 
Let those who list ask Sully to assuage 

Wild hearts with high-wrought periods, and restore 
The reign of rhetoric; or maxims sage 

Winnow from Seneca's sententious lore. 
Not these, but Judah's hallowed bards, to me 
Are dear: Isaiah's noble energy; 
The temperate grief of Job ; the artless strain 

Of Ruth and pastoral Amos; the high songs 

Of David ; and the tale of Joseph's wrongs. 
Simply, pathetic, eloquently plain* 

Aubrey De Vere. 

II 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



O 



The Poets of Old Israel 

LD Israel's readers of the stars, 
I love them best. Musing, the^^ read, 
In embers of the heavenly hearth. 
High truths were never learned below. 
They asked not of the barren sands, 
They questioned not that stretch of death; 
But upward from the humble tent 
They took the stairway of the hills ; 
Upward they climbed, bold in their trust, 
To pluck the glory of the stars, 
Faith falters, knowledge does not know, 
Fast, one by one, the phantoms fade ; 
But that strange light, unwavering love, 
Grasped from the lowered hand of God, 
Abides, quenchless forevermore. 

John Vance Cheney. 



One of the earliest specimens of English verse writ- 
ten by an English-born Jew addressed to Daniel Israel 
Lopez Laguna, w^ho published in 1720 a metrical 
translation of the Psalms in Spanish under the title 
**Espejo fiet de Vidas." 

On Translating the Psalms 

T_JOW great thy Thoughts, how Glorious thy De- 
**• "'' signs, 

How every Musick varies in thy Lines; 

The Praise of God in every Verse is found. 

Art strengthening Nature, Sense improv'd by Sound ; 

Your strains are Regularly Bold and Please, 

With unforst Care and unaffected Ease: 

Whene'er I look in thy Delightful Page, 

The Godly Verse my busy Thoughts engage, 

And David's Psalms so Perfect does appear 

True to the Sense, Harmonious to the Ear. 

12 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Happy the Man who strings his tuneful Lyre, 
That like King David's Harp, it do's Inspire: 
Thrice Happy thee and Worthiest to Dwell, 
Amongst those Precepts thou hast Sung so well ; 
Your Wondrous Song with Raptures I Rehearse, 
Then ask who wrought this Miracle of Verse: 
Triumph LAGUNA with Immortal Lays 
'Tis you alone that do's Deserve this Praise: 
'Tis you alone could chuse so great a Theme, 
That all the world in Duty must Esteem. 

Sampson Guideon, Jr. 



To God 

r\ THOU, the One supreme o'er all! 
^^ For by what other name 

May we upon thy greatness call, 
Or celebrate thy fame? 

Ineffable! to thee what speech 

Can hymns of honor raise? 
Ineffable ! what tongue can reach 

The measure of thy praise? 

How, unapproached, shall mind of man 
Descry Thy dazzling throne. 

And pierce and find thee out, and scan 
Where thou dost dwell alone? 

Unuttered thou ! all uttered things 
Have had their birth from thee; 

The one unknown ! from thee the springs 
Of all we know and see ! 

And all things, as they move along 

In order fixed by thee, 
Thy watchword heed, in silent song 

Hymning thy majesty. 

13 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And lo ! all things abide in thee, 
And through the complex whole, 

Thou spread'st thine own divinity, 
Thyself of all the goal. 

One being thou, all things, yet none, 

Nor one nor yet all things; 
How call thee, O mysterious One? 

A worthy name, who brings? 

All-named from attributes thine own, 

How call thee as we ought? 
Thou art unlimited, alone, 

Beyond the range of thought. 

Gregory Nanzianzen. 
(Translated by Allen W. Chatf^eld). 



Thou Art of All Created Things 

'T'HOU art of all created things, 

O Lord, the essence and the cause, 
The source and centre of all bliss; 
What are those veils of woven light 
Where sun and moon and stars unite, 
The purple morn, the spangled night. 
But curtains which thy mercy draws 
Betw^een the heavenly world and this? 
The terrors of the sea and land — 
When all the elements conspire, 
The earth and water, storm and fire — 
Are but the sketches of thy hand; 
Do they not all in countless ways — 
The lightning's flash, the howling storm, 
The dread volcano's awful blaze — 
Proclaim Thy glory and Thy praise? 

Calderon. 
14 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

The Seeing Eye 

'T'HERE is an eye that never sleeps 
*■• Beneath the wing of night; 
There is an ear that never shuts 

When sink the beams of sight; 
There is an arm that never tires 

When human strength gives waj^ ; 
There is a love that never fails 

When earthly loves decay. 
That eye is fix'd on seraph throngs, 
That ear is filled with angels' songs, 
That arm upholds the worlds on high. 
That Love is throned beyond the sky. 

Reginald Heber. 



O Thou Eternal One! 

r\ THOU Eternal One! whose presence bright 
^^^ All space doth occupy, all motion guide : 
Unchanged through time's all-devastating flight; 

Thou only God ! There is no God beside ! 
Being above all beings ! mighty One ! 

Whom none can comprehend and none explore; 
Who fill'st existence with Thyself alone: 

Embracing all, supporting, ruling o'er, — 

Being whom we call God, and know no more ! 

Gabriel Romanovitch Derzhavin. 
Translated by Sir John Bowring. 



The Infinity of God 

"^O coward soul is mine, 

No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere: 
I see Heaven's glories shine, 

And faith shines equal, arming me from fear. 

15 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

O God within m}^ breast, 

Almighty, ever-present Deity! 
Life — that in me has rest. 

As I — undying Life — have power in Thee! 

Vain are the thousand creeds 

That move men's hearts: unutterably vain; 
Worthless as withered weeds, 

Or idle froth amid the boundless main. 

To waken doubt in one 

Holding so fast by Thine infinity; 
So surely anchored on 

The steadfast rock of immortality. 

With wn'de-embracing love 

Thy spirit animates eternal years, 
Pervades and broods above. 

Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears. 

Though earth and man were gone, 

And suns and universes ceased to be. 
And Thou were left alone. 

Every existence would exist in Thee. 

There is not room for Death, 

Nor atom that his might could render void: 
Thou — Thou art Being and Breath, 

And what Thou art may never be destro3'ed. 

Emily Bronte. 



Adoration 

T LOVE my God, but with no love of mine, 

For I have none to give ; 
I love thee, Lord, but all the love is thine. 

For by thy life I live. 
I am as nothing, and rejoice to be 

Emptied and lost and swallowed up in thee. 

i6 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Thou, Lord, alone art all thy children need, 

And there is none beside ; 
From thee the streams of blessedness proceed; 

In thee the blest abide. 
Fountain of life, and all-abounding grace, 
Our source, our centre, and our dwelling-place! 

Madame Guyon. 



'Whither Shall I Go?'' 

T CANNOT find thee! still on restless pinion 
■*■ My spirit beats the void where thou dost dwell; 
I wander lost through all thy vast dominion, 
And shrink beneath thy light ineffable. 

I cannot know thee! even when most adoring 

Before thy shrine I bend in lowliest prayer; 
Beyond these bounds of thought, my thought upsoar- 

From further quest comes back; thou art not there. 

Yet high above the limits of my seeing 
And folded far within the inmost heart, 

And deep below the deeps of conscience being, 
Thy splendor shineth ; there, O God, thou art. 

I cannot lose thee ; still in thee abiding 

The end is clear. How wide so'er I roam ; 

The law that holds the worlds my steps is guiding. 
And I must rest at last in thee, my home. 

Eliza Scudder. 



Creation's Psalm 

A DEEP-BASSED thunder-rolling psalm 
'^~*" Sweeps thro' the reeded throat of Time, 
And charms the ear of every clime 
With music of the great "I Am." 

17 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

It drags the planets in their orbs, 

And smites the sun, and shakes the stars, 
And strikes the rocky-bedded bars, 

And beats about the aerial curbs! 

Creation chants the nameless Name, 
The winging worlds in chorus ring; 
The great lands shout; the huge seas sing; 

The thundering heavens roar, *'I Am!" 

SwiTHiN Saint SwiTHAiNE. 



Making of Man 

A L-MUZAWWIR! the "Fashioner!" say thus; 
**■ Still lauding Him who hath compounded us: 
When the Lord would fashion men. 
Spake He in the Angels' hearing, 
*'Lo! Our will is there shall be 

On the earth a creature bearing 
Rule and royalty. Today 
We will shape a man from clay." 

Spake the Angels, "Wilt Thou make 
Man who must forget his Maker, 

Working evil, shedding blood, 
Of Thy precepts the forsaker? 

But Thou knowest all, and we 

Celebrate Thy majesty." 

Answered Allah, "Yea! I know 
What ye know not of this making; 
Gabriel ! Michael ! Israfel ! 
Go down to the earth, and taking 

Seven clods of colors seven. 

Bring them unto Me in Heaven. 

i8 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Then those holy Angels three, 

Spread their pinions and descended; 

Seeking clods of diverse clay, 

That all colors might be blended; 

Yellow, tawny, dun, black, brown, 

White and red as men are known. 

But the earth spake sore afraid, 

"Angels! of my substance take not, 

Give me back niy dust and pray 
That the dread Creator make not 

Man, for he will sin and bring 

Wrath on me and suffering." 

Therefore, empty-handed came 

Gabriel, Michael, Israfel, 
Saying, "Lord ! Thy earth imploreth 

Man may never on her dwell ; 
He will sin and anger Thee, 
Give me back my clay!" cried she. 

Spake the Lord to Azrael, 

"Go thou, who of wing art surest, 

Tell my earth this shall be well; 

Bring those clods, which thou procurest 

From her bosom, unto Me; 

Shape them as I order thee." 

Thus 'tis written how the Lord 

Fashioned Adam for His glory, 
Whom the Angels worshipped, 

All save Iblis; and this story 
Teacheth wherefore Azrael saith 
"Come thou!" at man's hour of death. 

Edwin Arnold. 



19 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Adam and Eve 

(From "Paradise Lost") 
T^WO of far nobler shape, erect and tall, 

Godlike erect, with native honor clad. 
In naked majesty seemed lords of all: 
And worthy seemed; for In their looks divine 
The Image of their glorious Maker shone. 
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure, 
(Severe, but In true filial freedom placed). 
Whence true authority in men ; though both 
Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed ; 
For contemplation he and valor formed ; 
For softness she and sweet attractive grace; 
He for God only, she for God in him. 

John Milton. 

Adam to Eve 
(From "Paradise Lost") 

r\ FAIREST of creation, last and best 
^^ Of all God's works, creature In whom excelled 
Whatever can to sight or thought be formed 
Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet. 

John Milton. 
Eve 

17 OR the first time a lovely scene 

Earth saw and smiled, 
A gentle form with pallid mien 
Bending o'er a new-born child ; 
The pang, the anguish, and the woe 
That speech hath never told, 
Fled, as the sun with noontide glow 
Dissolves the snow-wreath cold. 
Leaving the bliss that none but mothers know; 
While he, the partner of her heaven-taught joy 
Knelt in adoring praise beside his beauteous boy. 
She, first of all our mortal race, 
Learn'd the ecstasy to trace 

20 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

The expanding form of infant grace 

From her own life-spring fed; 

To mark each radiant hour, 

Heaven's sculpture still more perfect growing, 

More full of power; 

The little foot's elastic tread, 

The rounded cheek, like rose-bud glowing, 

The fringed eye with gladness flowing 

As the pure, blue fountains roll ; 

And then those lisping sounds to hear, 

Unfolding to her thrilling ear 

The strange, mysterious, never-dying soul. 

And with delight intense 

To watch the angel-smile of sleeping innocence. 

No more she mourned lost Eden's joy, 
Or wept her cherish'd flowers, 
In their primeval bowers 
By wrecking tempests riven ; 
The thorn and thistle of the exile's lot 
She heeded not. 

So all-absorbing was her sweet employ 
To rear the incipient man, the gift her God had 
given. 

And when his boyhood bold 

A richer beauty caught. 

Her kindling glance of pleasure told 

The incense of her idol-thought; 

Not for the born of clay 

Is pride's exulting thrill. 

Dark herald of the downward way, 

And ominous of ill. 

Even his cradled brother's smile 

The haughty first-born jealously survey'd 

And envy marked the brow with hate and guile, 

In God's own image made. 

Lydia Huntley Sigourney. 

21 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The Rainbow 

D RIGHT pledge of peace and sunshine! the surety 
^ Of thy Lord's hand, the object of His eye! 
When I behold thee, though my light be dim, 
Distant and low, I can in thine see Him 
Who looks upon thee from His glorious throne, 
And minds the Covenant 'twixt All and One. 

Felicia Hemans. 



DOW of beauty, arching o'er us, tinted with un- 

earthly dyes, 
Stealing silently before us on the cloud of stormy skies; 
In the beaming radiance seeming, like an angel-path 

from heaven ; 
Or a vision to our dreaming, of some fairy fabric 

given. 

Thou art Mercy's emblem, brightly smiling through 
an angry frown ; 

Fairer for the gloom, as nightly glow the gems In 
Ether's crown. 

And when wrath Is darkest glooming on the coun- 
tenance divine. 

Love's and Mercy's light assuming, like the rainbow 
It doth shine. 

Henry Vaughan. 



Translation of the Patriarch 
(Genesis v. 24.) 

NTO tombstone saw they there, 
''• ^ No sepulchre's pallid gleam ; 
But a quiver went through the blue bright air, 
Like a thrill of a glorious dream. 

22 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

And the stately palm trees bowed, 

By old Euphrates' tide; 
And the deep sky glowed, like a burning cloud, 

Or a spirit glorified. 
When the good old Patriarch's footsteps trod 

The sapphire pavements, that lead to God. 
Where was he, when the gates 

Of Heaven were opened wide? 
Praying alone, like one that waits, 

By Tigris' sacred tide. 
Or by some lonely shore 

Where the hollow echo dwells. 
And sounding sea beats evermore, 

'Mid rocks and strange bright shells? 
Or chanting God's praises, with happy cheer, 

When the songs of the angels broke on his ear? 
And the gray Chaldean plains 

With a golden radiance shone, 
As Earth caught full the light that reigns 

Beside the Eternal Throne. 
Far off, and low, she heard 

The flow of Life's bright stream 
And the music of strange sweet melodies 

That haunts her like a dream; 
And only God's angels, with solemn eye, 

Saw the glorious pageant passing by. 
And still the rocks frown high. 

Amid the shadows lone — 
But their echoes nevermore reply 

To the sweet angelic tone; 
And an awful mystery fills 

That land of unknown graves, 
And ever thrills the solemn hills 

That guard Euphrates' waves ; 
But the word of God through ages dim. 
Reveals how Enoch went home to Him. 

Lucy A. Randall. 



23 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Abraham and His Gods 

DENEATH the full-eyed Syrian moon, 
*-^ The Patriarch, lost in reverence, raised 
His consecrated head, and soon 

He knelt and worshipped while he gazed: 
"Surely that glorious Orb on high 
Must be the Lord of earth and sky." 

Slowly towards its central throne 
The glory rose, yet paused not there 

But seemed by influence not its own 

Drawn downwards through the western air 

Until it wholly sunk away, 

And the soft Stars had all the sway. 

Then to the hierarchy of light. 

With face upturned the sage remained — » 
"At least Ye stand forever bright — 

Your power has never waxed or waned !" 
Even while he spoke, their work was done 
Drowned in the overflowing Sun. 

Eastward he bent his eager eyes — 

"Creatures of Night! false gods and frail! 

Take not the worship of the wise ; 
There is the Deity we hail. 

Fountain of light, and warmth, and love 

He only bears our hearts above." 

Yet was that One — that radiant One 
Who seemed so absolute a King, 

Only ordained his round to run 
And pass like each created thing; 

He rested not in noonday prime 

But fell beneath the strength of time. 

Then like one laboring without hope 
To bring his toil to fruitful end. 

And powerless to discern the scope 
Whereto his aspirations tend, 

24 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Still Abraham praj^ed day and night 
"God! Teach me to what God to pray." 

Nor long in vain ; an inward Light 

Arose to which the sun is pale. 
The knowledge of the Infinite, 

The sense of Truth that must prevail: — 
The presence of the only Lord 
By angels and by men adored. 

Richard Monckton Milnes 
(Lord Houghton). 



Abraham 

I WILL sing a song of heroes, 
Crowned with manhood's diadem, 

Men that lift us when we love them 
Into nobler life with them. 

I will sing a song of heroes 

To their God-sent mission true, 

From the ruin of the old time 
Grandly forth to shape the new: 

Men that, like a strong-winged zephyr, 
Come with freshness and with power. 

Bracing fearful hearts to grapple 
With the problem of the hour: 

Men whose prophet-voice of warning 
Stirs the dull, and spurs the slow. 

Till the big heart of a people 
Swells with hopeful overflow. 

I will sing the song of Terah, 

Abraham in tented state. 
With his sheep and goats and asses, 

Bearing high behests from Fate; 

25 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Journeying from beyond Euphrates, 
Where cool Orfa's bubbling well 

Lured the Greek and lured the Roman, 
By its verdurous fringe to dwell. 

When he left the flaming idols, 
Sun by day and Moon by night. 

To believe in something deeper 

Than the shows that brush the sight, 

And, as a traveller wisely trusteth 
To a practiced guide and true, 

So he owned the Voice that called him 
From the faithless Heathen crew. 

And he travelled from Damascus 
Southward where the torrent tide 

Of the sons of Ammon mingles 
With the Jordan's swelling pride. 

To the pleasant land of Schechem, 
To the flowered and fragrant ground 

'Twixt Mount Ebal and Gerizim, 
Where the bubbling wells abound. 

To the stony slopes of Bethel, 
And to Hebron's greening glade, 

Where the grapes with weighty fruitage 
Droop beneath the leafy shade. 

And he pitched his tent in Mamre, 
'Neath an oak-tree tall and broad 

And with pious care an altar 

Built there to the one true God. 

And the voice of God came near him, 

And the angels of the Lord 
'Neath the broad and leafy oak-tree 

Knew his hospitable board; 

26 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

And they hailed him with rare blessing 

For all peoples richly stored, 
Father of the faithful, elect 

Friend of God, Almighty Lord. 

And he sojourned 'mid the people 
With high heart and weighty arm, 

Wise to rein their wandering w^orship. 
Strong to shield their homes from harm. 

And fat Nile's proud Pharaohs owned him, 

As a strong, God-favored man, 
Like Osiris casting broadly 

Largess to the human clan. 

And he lived long years a witness 
To a pure high-thoughted creed. 

That in ripeness of the ages 

Grew to serve our mortal need. 

Not a priest and not a churchman 
From all proud pretentions free. 

Shepherd chief and shepherd-warrior 
Human-faced like j^ou and me: 

Human-faced and human-hearted, 

To the pure religion true, 
Purer than the gay and sensuous 

Grecian, wider than the Jew. 

Common sire, whom Jew and Christian, 
Turk and Arab, name and praise; 

Common as the sun that shines 

On East and West with brothered rays. 

John Stuart Blackie. 



27 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The Tent of Abraham 

T^HE shadows of an Eastern daj^ 
■*■ Lengthened along the sandy way, 

When, toiling faint and lone, 
An aged wanderer crossed the plain, 
As if his every step were pain. 

His every breath a groan! 
Till Abraham's tent appeared in view, 
And slowly towards his rest he drew. 

And Abraham met his wayworn look 
With pity, for the old man shook 

With years at every tread ; 
For he the wrinkled impress bore 
Of full one hundred years or more 

Upon his silver head ; 
Then Abraham washed his aching feet, 
Assuaged their pain, and brought him meat. 

You should have known the burning glare 
Of soil and sun, and sultry air, 

To tell how sweet the draught 
That blessed those lips so parched and old; 
Oh! water — not a world of gold 

Could buy that joy he quaffed! 
You should have toiled the burning waste, 
To taste how sweetly food can taste! 

But Abraham sa^y with deep amaze 
The old man's strange and godless ways; 

For ere he bent to eat, 
Nor praise nor thanks he uttered there. 
Nor raised his grateful eyes in prayer 

To God who sent him meat; 
Sudden he sat, in eager mood, 
And called no blessing on the food! 

"Ownest thou not the God of Heaven, 
That unto thee these things hath given?" 

28 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Said Abraham in his ire; 
He answered, "Five-score years I've trod, 
Yet v^^orshipped but one only God, — 

The eternal God of Fire!" 
And Abraham, wroth, his anger spent, 
And thrust him, storming, from his tent. 

An Eastern night is dread to bear — 
There's fever in the sickly air, 

And evils few can speak 
Save those whose wandering lives have known 
The perils 'mid the desert thrown. 

Or heard the tempest's shriek; 
Yet pitiless, from out his sight. 
Stern Abraham cast him to the night. 

Then there was sudden awe on Night — 
The pale West quivered with wild light — 

The stars apart were thrown ; 
And all the air around the sky 
Seemed like a glory hung on high, — 

A gleam of worlds unknown; 
And from that glory high installed, 
A voice — God's voice — to Abraham called: 

"Why went this stranger from thy board?" 
And Abraham answered, "Know, O Lord, 

That he denied Thy name; 
Neither would worship Thee, nor bless; 
So forth, unto the wilderness, 

I drove him, in his shame!" 
And God said, "If I still allow 
Peace to his errors, couldst not thou? 

"If I, these hundred years, have borne 
The wanderer's sin, neglect, and scorn, 

Yet ne'er did vengeance seek. 
How is't that thou, for one poor night, 
Couldst bear him not within thy sight? 

Look up to Me, and speak!" 

29 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Then towards the Voice, with trembling steps he trod, 
And Abraham stood rebuked before his God. 

Charles Swain. 

The Ballade of Dead Cities 

"W/HERE are the cities of the plain? 
^ And where the shrines of rapt Bethel? 
And Calah built of Tubal-Cain? 

And Shinar whence King Amraphel 
Came out in arms and fought, and fell, 

Decoyed into the pits of slime 
By Siddim and sent sheer to hell ; 

Where are the cities of old time? 

Where now is Karnak, that great fane. 

With granite built, a miracle? 
And Luxor smooth without a stain, 

Whose graven scripture still we spell? 
The jackal and the owl may tell; 

Dark snakes around their ruins climb, 
They fade like echo in a shell ; 

Where are the cities of old time? 

And where is white Shushan, again. 

Where Vashti's beauty bore the bell, 
And all the Jew^ish oil and grain 

Were brought to Mithridath to sell, 
Where Nehemiah would not dwell, 

Because another town sublime 
Decoyed him with her oracle? 

Where are the cities of old time? 

Envoi 

Prince, with a dolorous, ceaseless knell, 
Above their wasted toil and crime 

The waters of oblivion swell: 

Where are the cities of old time? 

Edmund Gosse. 

30 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Ha gar 

T ONE in the wilderness, her child and she, 
^-^ Sits the dark beauty, and her fierce-eyed boy. 
A heavy burden and no winsome toy 
To such as she, a hanging babe must be. 
A slave without a master — wild, nor free, 
With anger in her heart! and in her face 
Shame for foul wrong and undeserved disgrace, 
Poor Hagar mourns her lost virginity ! 
Poor woman fear not — God is everywhere; 
The silent tears, thy thirsty infant's moan, 
Are known to Him whose never-absent care 
Still wakes to make all hearts and souls his own; 
He sends an angel from beneath his throne 
To cheer the outcast in the desert bare. 

Hartley Coleridge. 



The Meeting of Isaac and Rebecca 

\Y7HO is this man that walketh in the field, 

^^ O Eleazer, steward to my lord ? 
And Eleazer answered her and said. 
Daughter of Bethuel, it is other none 
But my lord Isaac, son unto my lord. 
Who as his wont is, walketh in the field. 
In the hour of evening meditating there. 

Therefore Rebekah hasted where she sat. 
And from her camel 'lighting to the earth. 
Sought for a veil and put it on her face. 

But Isaac also, walking in the field, 
Saw from afar a company that came, 
Camels, and a seat as where a woman sat ; 
Wherefore he came and met them on the way. 
Whom, when Rebekah saw, she came before 
Saying, Behold the handmaiden of my lord, 
Who, for my lord's sake travel from my land. 

31 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

But he said, O thou blessed of our God, 
Come, for the tent is eager for thy face. 
Shall not thy husband be unto thee more than 
Hundreds of kinsmen living in thy land ? 

And Eleazer answered: Thus and thus. 
Even according as thy father bade, 
Did we; and thus and thus it came to pass: 
Lo! is not this Rebekah, Bethuel's child? 
And as he ended, Isaac spoke and said. 
Surely my heart went with you on the way 
When with the beasts ye came unto the place. 

Truly, O child of Nahor, I was there 
When to my mother and my mother's son 
Thou madest answer, saying, I will go. 
And Isaac brought her to her mother's tent. 

Arthur Hugh Clough. 



Jacob's Dream 
(Genesis xxviii. 10-12) 

/^H, pilgrim, halting on the rock-strewn sod 
^^ To thee this Bethel vision still appears! 
The golden ladder of the love of God 

Shines on the weary eyes, all wet with tears. 

He leads thee on by ways thou hast not known, 
He bids thee rest in desert stillness deep, 

He gives thee pillows of the barren stone ; 
And lo! His angels dawn upon thy sleep. 

He shows thee how Eternal Love unites 

Thy sin-marred earth with His own sphere of bliss 

And sends His bright ones from their radiant heights, 
Laden with blessings from that world to this. 

32 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Thy solitude is no darkness unto Him, 
The solitudes are peopled with His host 

Close the dim eye, and rest the wayworn limb — 
The Lord is near when thou dost need Him most. 

S. D. 



Pillow and Stone 

T TPON a stone in olden time 
^^ A wanderer sank to rest. 
A wondrous vision soothed his heart 
How strangely was he blessed ! 

The arched sky w^as his coverlet, 

The night-wind cradle song; 
A ladder mounted heavenward 

Which bore an angel throng. 

Ah, in these sober days of ours 
When we soft close our eyes, 

No lofty ladder climbs above, 
No angel hosts arise. 

And tho our bed be richly draped 

And royal fares our own, 
For oft we waken unrefreshed — 

The pillow's changed to stone! 

Abram S. Isaacs. 



A 



Beth-el 

RUGGED stone, 

For centuries neglected and alone, — 
Its destiny unknown. 



The tide of light 
Sped o'er it, and the breakers of the night, 
In alternating flight. 

33 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And it was wet 
With twilight dew, the sacramental sweat 
That mystic dreams beget. 

There Jacob lay, 
Dark struggling, till the wrestler, white as day 
Brake from his arms away. 

Upon the sod 
A pillow; then, by countless angels trod, 
A stepping stone to God. 

John B. Tabb. 



As Jacob Served for Rachel 

'HTWAS the love that lightened service! 

■*• The old, old story sweet 
That yearning lips and waiting hearts 

In melody repeat. 
As Jacob served for Rachel 

Beneath the Syrian sky, 
Like the golden sands that swiftly drop 

The toiling years went by. 

Chill fell the dews upon him, 

Fierce smote the sultry sun ; 
But what w^re cold and heat to him, 

Till that dear wife was w^on! 
The angels whispered in his ear 

'*Be patient and be strong!" 
And the thought of her he waited for 

Was ever like a song. 

Sweet Rachel, with the secret 

To hold a brave man leal ; 
To keep him through the changeful years 

Her own in woe and weal ; 

34 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

So that in age and exile, 

The death damp on his face, 
Her name to the dark valley lent 

Its own peculiar grace. 

And 'There I buried Rachel," 

He said of that lone spot 
In Ephrath, near to Bethlehem, 

Where the wife he loved was not; 
For God has taken from him 

The brightness and the zest, 
And the heaven above thenceforward kept 

In fee his very best. 

Of the love that lightens service, 

Dear God, how much we see, 
When the father toils the livelong day 

For the children at his knee ; 
When all night the mother wakes. 

Nor deem the vigil hard. 
The rose of health on sick one's cheek, 

Her happy heart's reward. 

The love that lightens service 

The fisherman can tell, 
When he wTests the bread his dear ones eat 

Where the bitter surges swell ; 
And the farmer in the furrow. 

The merchant in the m.art. 
Count little worth their weary toil 

For the treasures of the heart. 
• • • • • • 

As Jacob served for Rachel 

Beneath the Syrian sky. 
And the golden sands of toiling years 

Went swiftly slipping by, 
The thought of her was music 

To cheer his weary feet, 
'Twas love that li^hferted service, 

The old, old story sweet. anonymous. 

35 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Mizpah 

"The Lord watch between me and thee when we 
are absent from each other." — Gen. xxxi. 49. 

A BROAD gold band engraven 
^^ With word of Holy Writ 
A ring, the bond and token, 

Which love and prayer hath lit, 
When absent from each other 

O'er mountain, vale and sea, 
The Lord, who guarded Israel, 

Keeps watch 'tween me and thee. 

Through days of light and gladness, 

Through days of love and life, 
Through smiles, and joy, and sunshine, 

Through days with beauty rife; 
When absent from each other, 

O'er mountain, vale, and sea, 
The Lord of love and gladness. 

Keep watch 'tween me and thee. 

Through days of doubt and darkness, 

In fear and trembling breath ; 
Through mists of sin and sorrow, 

In tears, and grief and death. 
The Lord of life and glory, 

The King of earth and sea, 
The Lord who guarded Israel, 

Keep watch 'tween me and thee. 

Anonymous. 



Israel 

WHEN by Jabbok the patriarch waited 
To learn on the morrow his doom 
And his dubious spirit debated 
In darkness and silence and gloom, 

. 36 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

There descended a Being with whom 

He wrestled in agony sore, 

With striving of heart and of brawn, 

And not for an instant forbore 

Till the east gave a threat of the dawn; 

And then, the Awful One blessed him ; 

To his lips and his spirit there came, 

Compelled by the doubts that oppressed him, 

The cry that through questioning ages 

Has been rung from the hinds and the sages, 

"Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name!" 
Most fatal, most futile of questions! 
Wherever the heart of man beats, 
In the spirits' most sacred retreats. 
It comes with its sombre suggestions 
Unanswered forever and aye. 
The blessing may come and may stay, 
For the wrestler's heroic endeavor; 
But the question, unheeded forever, 
Dies out in the broadening day. 

In the ages before our traditions. 

By the altars of dark superstitions. 

The imperious question has come; 

When the death-stricken victim lay sobbing 

At the feet of his slayer and priest, 

And his heart was laid smoking and throbbing 

To the sound of the cymbal and drum 

On the steps of the high Teocallis; 

When the delicate Greek at his feast 

Poured forth the red wine from his chalice 

With mocking and cynical prayer ; 

When by Nile Egypt worshipping lay. 

And afar through the rosy, flushed air 

The Memnon called out to the day; 

Where the Muezzin's cry floats from his spire; 

In the vaulted Cathedral's dim shades, 

Where the crushed hearts of thousands aspire 



37 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Through art's highest miracle higher, 

This question of questions invades 

Each heart bowed in worship or shame; 

In the air where the censers are swinging, 

A voice, going up with the singing, 

Cries, "Tell me I pray Thee Thy name." 

No answer came back, not a word, 

To the patriarch there by the ford ; 

No answer has come through the ages 

To the poets, the seers and the sages 

Who have sought in the secrets of science 

The name or the nature of God, 

Whether crushing in desperate defiance 

Or kissing his absolute rod ; 

But the answer which was and shall be, 

''My name! Nay, what is it to thee?" 

The search and the question are vain. 

By use of the strength that is in you. 

By wrestling of soul and of sinew 

The blessing of God you may gain. 

There are lights in the far-gleaming Heaven 

That never shall shine on our eyes; 

To mortals it may not be given 

To range those inviolate skies. 

The mind, whether praying or scorning. 

That tempts those dread secrets shall fail; 

But strive through the night till the morning, 

And mightily thou shait prevail. ^ ,, 

John Hay. 



The Cry of Rachel 

T STAND in the dark; I beat on the floor, 

■'• Let me in. Death. 

Through the storm am I come; I find you before 

Let me in. Death. 
For him that is sweet, and for him that is small, 
I beat on the door, I cry, and I call : 

Let me in, Death. 

38 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

For he was my bow of the almond-tree fair: 

Let me in, Death. 
You brake it; it whitens no more by the stair: 

Let me in, Death. 
For he was my lamp in the House of the Lord; 
You quenched, and left me this dark and the sword : 

Let me in, Death. 

I that was rich do ask you for alms: 

Let me in. Death. 
I that was full, uplift your stripped palms: 

Let me in, Death. 
Back to me now give the child that I had; 
Cast into mine arms my little sweet lad: 

Let me in, Death. 

Are 3^ou grown so deaf that you cannot hear? 

Let me in. Death. 
Unclose the dim eye, and unstop the ear: 

Let me in. Death. 
I will call so loud, I will cry so sore, 
You must for shame's sake come open the door: 

Let me in, Death. 

LiZETTE Wordsworth Reese. 



Dirge of Rachel 

A ND Rachel lies in Ephrath's land, 
**• Beneath her lonely oak of weeping; 
With mouldering heart and withering hand, 
The sleep of death forever sleeping. 

The spring comes smiling down the vale, 
The lilacs and the roses bringing; 

But Rachel never more shall hail 

The flowers that in the world are springing. 

39 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The surtimer gives his radiant day, 

And Jewish dames the dance are treading; 

But Rachel, on her couch of clay, 
Sleeps all unheeded and unheeding. 

The autumn's ripening sunbeam shines, 
And reapers to the field is calling; 

But Rachel's voice no longer joins 
The choral song at twilight's falling. 

The winter sends his drenching shower, 
And sweeps his howling blast around her, 

But earthly storms possess no power 

To break the slumber that hath bound her. 

William Knox. 



Moses 

'T'HRONES that stood and realms that flour- 
■*• ished, 

Races that have ruled the world, — ■ 
They have fallen, they have perished, 

And new standards are unfurled. 
Gods are banished at whose altars 

Nations have been wont to pray, 

And where Wisdom erst held sway 
Ignorance supinely falters. 

Deeds that once with blare and clangor 

Filled the earth, have ceased to be; 
Even their renown no longer 

Lives in lays of minstrelsy. 
Lo! the hero's might is broken 

And his sword is gone to rust; 

Lips are steeped in death and dust 
That have sweetly sung and spoken. 

40 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

But athwart the gulf of ages 

From whose all-devouring deep 
Songs of bards and words of sages 

Mist like in tradition sweep, — 
Radiant and serene reposes, 

Unattained by mist and gloom, 

Undiminished by the tomb, 
A colossal image — Moses. 

Though we wot not of his feature, 
Of such ken there is no need. 

For his aspect is the creature 

Of his word and of his deed, — 

Of the word that is engraven 
Even on the soul that's lost 
Of the deed that led his host 

Toward freedom, truth and Heaven. 

Thus we see him; Superhuman 

In his purpose and in might. 
Tender is his love as woman, 

Fierce in the defense of right; 
Meek and faltering, yet compliant, 

In the presence of the Lord, — 

In obedience of his word 
Bold, unyielding and defiant. 

Even as the luminary 

Of our days from fumous height — 
Lifeless, barren, solitary — 

Beams with life diffusing light; 
So he rises on our vision 

From the past which phantoms shroud, 

Life-impregnate, halo-browed, 
In the garb of his tradition. 

What he wrought and what he uttered, 
Where he trod and where he stood; 

Where the flaming briar fluttered 
In the desert's solitude; 

41 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

At the throne of him who trifled 
With the wrath revealed of God, 
And where with uplifted rod 

The pursuing hosts he stifled; 

On that pilgrimage unequaled 

When he smote the barren rock, 
Or by marvel or decree quelled 

Ingrate murmurs of his flock; 
When from Sinai, rent with thunder, 

He descended with the Law: — 

Thrills with rever-ential awe 
And compels transcendent wonder. 

As he lived so was his passing 

Self-obscuring, tranquil, grand, 
As with eyes that death was glassing 

He beheld the promised land — 
Did he ween as on that mountain 

He expired meek and brave, 
That while man still man would be, 
Far into eternity. 

He would look on Moses' grave 
As his birthright's sacred fountain? 

N. N. 



Rescue of Moses 

IN Judah's halls the harp is hushed, 

Her voice is but the voice of pain ; 
The heathen heel her helms has crushed, 

Her spirit wears the heathen chain. 
From the dark prison-house she cried, 

"How long, O Lord, Thy sword has slept! 
Oh, quell the oppressor in his pride!" 

Still Pharoah ruled, and Israel wept. 

The morning breezes freshly blow, 
The waves in golden sunlight quiver; 

42 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

The Hebrew's daughter wanders slow 

Beside the mighty idol river. 
A babe within her bosom lay; 

And must she plunge him in the deep? 
She raised her eyes to heaven to pray; 

She turned them down to earth to weep. 

She knelt beside the rushing tide, 

Mid rushes dark and flow'rets wild ; 
Beneath the plane-tree's shadow wide, 

The weeping mother placed her child. 
"Peace be around thee, though thy bed 

A mother's breast no more may be; 
Yet He that shields the lily's head. 

Deserted babe, will watch o'er thee!" 

She's gone ! that mourning mother ! gone. 

List to the sound of dancing feet. 
And lightly bounding, one by one, 

A lovely train the timbrels beat. 
'Tis she of Egypt : Pharoah's daughter, 

That with her maidens come to lave 
Her form of beauty in the water, 

And light with beauty's glance the wave. 

The monarch's daughter saw and wept; 

(How lovely falls compassion's tear!) 
The babe that there in quiet slept, 

Blest in unconsciousness of fear. 
'Twas hers to pity and to aid 

The infant chief, the infant sage; 
Undying fame the deed repaid, 

Recorded upon heaven's own page. 

Years pass away, the land Is free! 

Daughter of Zion ! mourn no more ! 
The oppressor's hand is weak on thee. 

Captivity's dark reign Is o'er. 

43 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Thy chains are burst ; thy bonds are riven ; 

On! like a river strong and wide: 
A captain is to Judah given — 

The babe that slept by Nile's broad tide. 

Anonymous. 



The Young Moses 

HP HE w^orld v^^as at his feet . . . 
*- , But overhead, the stars! 
From Luxor's roof he saw their light on pillared 

Karnak fall, 
And knew what gods and ghosts of monarchs 
Alien to his blood 

Kept guard among the shadows there ... 
While far upon the breathing plain 
Hushed Memnon brooded, holding at his heart 
A golden cry that trembled for the dawn . . . 
Upon a temple's roof at Thebes the young Moses 

stood 
In commune with his dreams . . . 

A kingdom at his feet . . . 

Fostered of Pharaoh's daughter, 

And a Prince in Egypt: 

In statecraft, priestcraft, lifecraft, skilled: 

Wise in his youth, and strong, and conscious of his 

powers : 
Dowered with the patience and the passion that are 

genius: 
Ambitious, favored, subtle, sure and swift — 
Already Prince in Egypt! 
And later, anything he willed . . . 
Fledged early, with a soaring instinct in his wings. 

He mused, and for an infinite moment 

All the world streamed by him in a mist . . . 

44 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Cities and ships and nations, 

Temples and armies, melted to a mist, and swirling 

past beneath the stars: 
And a faint tumult filled his ears of trumpets and 

the clash of brazen arms. 

The wind and sound of empire, 

And he felt the mighty pulse of his own thought and 
will transmuted to the tread of marching hosts 

That shook the granite hills, 

And saw chained kings cringe by his chariots, lion- 
drawn . . . 

And felt himself on Seti's throne and crowned with 
Seti's crown, 

And all earth's rhythms beating to his sense of law, 

And half earth's purple blood, if so he would, poured 
out to dye his robes with deeper splendor . . . 

And all the iron delight of power was his . . . 

This Egypt was a weapon to his hand, 

This life was buoyant air, and his the eagle's plume. 

For one measureless moment this vision moved and 
glittered. 

Rushing by . . . 

Master of men he knew himself ; he thrilled ; 

There an empire at his feet. 

But overhead, a God . . . 

Implacable divinity that, as he looked, was of a sud- 
den manifest 

In all the burning stars ... 

Relentless, searching spirit. 

Cruel holiness that smote him with the agony of love, 

Stern sweetness piercing to the soul. 

Silence articulate that turned the universe to one un- 
spoken word. 

Violent serenity that plucked at his roots of being . . . 

And a voice that answered him before he questioned 
it . . . 

45 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

For one eternal instant Moses stood, 
The cup of empire lifted to his lips, 
And struggled with the God that is not If we are not 
He . . . 

And then . . . descended from the temple's roof, 

And cast his princely trappings off, 

And took his slow way through the shadowed town 

Unto the quarter where an outcast people and op- 
pressed 

Labored beneath the lash 

And put their lives and hopes into the bricks because 
there was no straw. 

And cast his lot in with those sickly slaves. 

To lead them, if he might, from bondage . . . 

Anonymous. 



Moses 

I WILL sing high-hearted Moses 
*" By the Nile's sweet-watered stream, 
In the land of strange taskmasters. 
Brooding o'er the patriot theme. 

Brooding o'er the bright green valleys 
Of his dear-loved Hebrew home, 

Whence the eager pinch of Famine 
Forced the Patriarch to roam. 

Brooding o'er his people's burdens, 
Lifting vengeful arm to smite. 

When he saw the harsh Egyptian 
Stint the Hebrew of his right. 

Brooding far in lonely places. 
Where on holy ground unshod. 

He beheld the bush that burned 
With consuming flame from God. 

46 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Saw, and heard, and owned the mission 
With his outstretched prophet-rod, 

To stir plagues upon the Pharoah, 
Scorner of the most high God. 

God, who brought His folk triumphant 
From the strange taskmaster free, 

And merged the Memphians, horse and rider, 
In the deep throat of the sea. 

Then uprose the song of triumph, 
Harp and timbrel, song and dance, 

And with firm set will the hero 
Led the perilous advance. 

And he led them through the desert 

As a shepherd leads his flock, 
Breaking spears with cursed Amalek, 

Striking water from the rock. 

And he led them to Mount Sinai's 
High-embattled rock; and there, 

'Mid thick clouds of smoke and thunder, 
Like trumpet clave the air. 

To the topmost peak he mounted, 
And with reverent awe unshod, 

As a man with men discourseth, 
So he there communed with God. 

Not in wild ecstatic plunges, 

Not in visions of the night. 
Not in flashes of quick fancy, 

Darkness sown with gleams of light. 

But in calm untroubled survey. 
As a builder knows his plan. 
Face to face he knew Jehovah 
And His wondrous ways with man. 

47 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Ways of gentleness and mercy, 

Ways of vengeance strong to smite, 

Ways of large unchartered giving. 
Ever tending to the right. 

In the presence of the Glory 

What no mortal sees he saw. 
And from hand that no man touches 

Brings the tables of the Law. 

Law that bound them with observance 
Lest untutored wit might stray, 

Each man where his private fancy 
Led him in a wanton way. 

Law that from the life redeemed them 
Of loose Arabs wandering wild, 

And to fruitful acres brought them 
Where ancestral virtue toiled. 

Law that dowered the chosen people 

With a creed divinely true, 
Which the subtle Greek and lordly Roman 

Stooped to borrow from the Jew. 

John Stuart Blackie. 



On the Picture of the Finding of Moses by 
Pharaoh's Daughter 

'T'HIS picture does the story express 
*■■ Of Moses in the bulrushes, 
How lively the painter's hand 
By colors makes us understand. 
Moses that little infant is, 
This figure is his sister. This 
Fine stately lady is no less 
A personage than a princess, 

48 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Daughter of Pharaoh, Egypt's king 

Whom Providence did hither bring 

This little Hebrew child to save. 

See how near the perilous wave 

He lies exposed in the ark, 

His rushy cradle, his frail bark! 

Pharaoh, King of Egypt land, 

In his greatness gave command 

To his slaves they should destroy 

Every new-born Hebrew boy. 

This Moses was a Hebrew's son; 

When he was born, his birth to none 

His mother told, to none revealed 

But kept her goodly child concealed. 

Three months she hid him ; then she wrought 

With bulrushes this ark, and brought 

Him in it to this river's side, 

Carefully looking far and wide 

To see that no Egyptian eye 

Her ark-hid treasure should espy. 

Among the river-flags she lays 

The child. Near him his sister stays. 

We may imagine her affright 

When the King's daughter is in sight. 

Soon the princess will perceive 

The ark among the flags and give 

Command to her attendant maid 

That its contents shall be displaj^ed. 

Within the ark the child is found, 

And now he utters mournful sound. 

Behold he weeps as if he were 

Afraid of Egypt's cruel heir ! 

She speaks, she says, "This little one 

I will protect though he the son 

Be of an Hebrew." Every word 

She speaks is by the sister heard. 

And now observe, this is the part 

The painter chose to show his art. 

Look at the sister's eager eye, 

49 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

As here she seems advancing nigh. 
Lowly she bends, says ''Shall I go 
And call a nurse for thee? I know 
A Hebrew woman liveth near. 
Great lady, shall I bring her here?" 
See! Pharaoh's daughter answers "Go." 
No more the painter's art can show. 
He cannot make his figures move. 
On the light wings of swiftest love 
The girl will fly to bring the mother 
To be the nurse. She'll bring no other. 
To her will Pharaoh's daughter say, 
"Take this from me away, 
For wages nurse him." To my home 
At proper age this child may come. 
When to our palace he is brought, 
Wise masters shall for him be sought 
To train him up befitting one, 
I w^ould protect as my own son. 
And Moses be a name unto him, 
Because I from the waters drew him. 

Charles and Mary Lamb. 



Moses in the Desert 

/^ O where a foot hath never trod, 
^^ Through unfrequented forests flee; 
The wilderness is full of God, 
His presence dwells in every tree. 

To Israel and to Egypt dead, 

Moses the fugitive appears, 
Unknow^n he lived, till o'er his head 

Had fallen the snow of fourscore years. 

But God the wandering found 
In his appointed time and place. 

The desert sand grew holy ground. 
And Horeb's rock a throne of grace. 

50 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

The lonely bush a tree became, 

A tree of beauty and of light, 
Involved with unconsuming flame 

That made the moon around it night. 

Then came the Eternal voice that spake 

Salvation to the chosen seed, 
Thence went the Almighty arm that brake 

Proud Pharaoh's yoke, and Israel freed. 

By Moses, old and slow of speech, 
These mighty miracles were shown ; 

Jehovah's messenger! to teach 

That power belongs to God alone. 

James Montgomery. 



The Destroying Angel 

1_IE stopped at last 

And a mild look of sacred pity cast 
Down on the sinful land where he was sent 
To inflict the tardy punishment. 
"Ah ! yet," said he, "Yet, stubborn king, repent, 
Whilst thus armed I stand 

Ere the keen sword of God fill my commanded hand. 
Suffer but thyself and thine to live 
Who would alas! believe 
That it for man," said he 
"So hard to be forgiven should be, 
And yet for God so easy to forgive!" 

Through Egypt's wicked land his march he took, 

And as he marched, the sacred first-born strook 

Of every womb ; none did he spare, 

None, from the meanest beast to Pharaoh's purple heir. 

Whilst health and strength and gladness doth possess 

The festal Hebrew cottages ; 

51 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The blest destroyer comes not there 

To interrupt the sacred cheer: 

Upon their doors he read and understood. 

God's protection writ in blood ; 

Well was he skilled in the character divine, 

And though he passed by it in haste, 

He bowed and worshipped as he passed 

The mighty mystery through its humble sign. 

Abraham Cowley. 



The Passover 

*nPIS night, dark night! a solemn stillness reigns 

■'• O'er Egypt's land ; the midnight hour is come. 
Whilst Pharaoh's disobedience still detains 

Against God's will his people ; such a doom 
Ne'er fell on land, and ne'er will fall again, 

These were the words divine, which Moses gave 
To Eg}^pt's king and court; but all in vain. 

His heart is hardened, nothing now can save 
The land from desolation ; for 'twas He, 

The Immutable, who gave this dread command. 
Death in his stead shall reign ; Eternity 

Shall swallow up the first-born of the land. 
But hard and harder grew the tyrant's heart; 

No fear of God had ever entered there ; 

With Israel's children ; how could man so dare. 
Not love but tyranny, forbade him part 
Against high Heaven's designs, his own to place, 

In competition! (what, but want of fear 
Of that high Power, could with unblushing face 

Have made him tempt Omnipotence, and rear 
His haughty head? but God in wisdom knew. 

In wisdom infinite divinely planned ; 
Th' Eternal mind already had in mind 

Glorious redemption — infinitely planned 
Oh great deliverance! what love too great. 

What gratitude of ours can e'er repay 

52 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

The mercy which released us from that state 

Of servile bondage and tyrannic sway? 
In every house is silence most profound, 

Th' Egyptians sleep — not so the chosen race 
Who, all prepared, now wait without a sound, 

Whilst anxious hope is pictured on each face. 
Now suddenly along the midnight air 

A low and piteous wailing first is borne. 
Then loud and fearful shrieks of sad despair 

Echo from house to house, where death has gone. 
Swiftly upon the sable wing of night, 

The angel has gone forth ; upon his brow 
No pity can be traced ; for in his sight 

The prince and meanest slave are equalled now. 
Then Pharaoh's voice amid the general cry. 

In grief and haste for Moses loudly called, 
Moses and Aaron he implored to fly, 

For death surrounds him, he stands appalled. 
Then did the Israelites come forth as one, 

Their wives, their children — cattle in arrear 
In silence and in haste their flight began ; 

They marched triumphant, for their God was near. 
He was their only guide by night and day, 

A cloud by day — a pillar of fire by night 
Thus gloriously He led them on their way. 

And thus He ever keeps us in His sight. 
Now scarce encamped besides the sea, they view, 

With dread and horror Pharaoh and his host, 
His chariots and his horsemen all pursue 

To overtake them ere they reach the coast. 
But what are human plans if God oppose, 

"Fear not," then Moses said, "but wait and see 
Salvation of the Lord ; for these our foes 

Will never more on earth be seen by thee." 
He scarce had said, when at the voice of God 

The sea divides — they walk upon dry land, 
Then, at the voice Divine, he lifts his rod — 

Two upright walls of sea majestic stand. 

53 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The cloud, which until now, had gone before, 

Suddenly changes its resplendent light. 
The Israelites now crossed — the sea once more 

Resumes its place, but in the Egyptians' sight 
The light is darkness now; for all is seen 

Dark on that side, where Pharaoh's horsemen dash 
On with rapid speed; while still between 

That cloud remains. A loud and fearful crash, 
Another and another quick succeed, 

'Tis God who fights against them; vain the thought 
To flee from Israel's face ; for whence proceeds 

Such wond'rous power, if not from God who fought 
On Israel's side? who safe had reached the shore 

Ere morning's faintest blush began to spread, 
They saw the Egyptians sink to rise no more, 

Not one that was not numbered with the dead. 
Then all the multitude, with one accord 

Joined Moses in a loud and heartfelt cry 
Of gratitude and praises to the Lord ; 

"They sang to Him who triumphed gloriously." 

R. E. S. 



Out of Egypt 

'T'HE flaming sunset bathed the distant hills 
In gold, the air was chill, and darkness fell 
Upon the silent land. Then through the night 
A cry of pain rose like a wave, and fell, 
Again and yet again it soared aloft, 
But dying to be born anew ; a w^ail 
Of anguish wild, of hoarse and deep despair 
From countless hearts, w^ho called unto their gods 
With tears and sobs, with broken prayers in vain ! 
For death attired in red, with scourge and flail 
Had swept through Eg^pt at the voice of God. 
And as he passed behold his steps were stained 
With blood. All first-born children in the land 
Were dead. The Pharaoh and the shepherd mourned 

54 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Alike, for blood red tracks were traced from door 

To door; from palace garden to the home 

Of those who lived in pinch of utter want. 

1 hen God spake, and the voices of the crowds' 

Were stilled: "I am the Lord. I am the Lord, 

My children you have treated like the dust, 

My chosen people you have bound with shame. 

You hold them, and you would not let them go, 

So I the Lord their God have taken all 

The first-born in your land . . . 

But Israel's children have I spared to live, 

And death into their house hath entered not. 

Repent, repent, and pray you be stiff-necked • 

And proud no more." Then ceased the voice of God. 

And mourning into hatred turned, the fumes 

Of passion smote upon their souls — **Begone, 

Begone accursed of our sight, arise 

And flee, lest we be all dead men ; take gold, 

/ nd silver, flocks and herds, and leave us peace.'* 

So Israel fled out in the night, and came 

Not to that land again. And now once more 

A silence fell, and stars of heaven gazed 

Upon the stricken homes, upon the palm 

Trees listening to the whisper of the wind, 

L^pon the silent Nile, upon the land 

Dorothea De Pass. 



Psalm CXIV 

"VY7HEN Israel from proud Egypt's yoke 

'^ Of bondage first came forth. 
And the house of Jacob from the land 
Of strange tongues, in the North. 

Judah His Sanctuary stood. 

And Israel proud was His domain, 

The Sea beheld, and straightway fled, 
And Jordan backward, drove amain. 

55 • 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Like mountains, skipped the wethers, then, 
Like playful lambs, the mighty hills; 

Oh Sea! Why flee'st thou about? 
And, Jordan, whence thy tiny rills? 

Ye Mountains, that ye skip apace. 
Ye mighty hills, like tiny sheep; 

The earth in trembling fears the Lord, 
For Jacob's God 'tis now ye weep. 

• Who turneth to a watery pool 
The hard unstable rock, 
The flint unto a living fount 
Of waters, for His flock. 

Myrtilla E. Mitchell. 



The Passage of the Red Sea 

'lyyilD the light spray their snorting camels stood, 
^^^ Nor bathed a fetlock in the nauseous flood — 
He comes — their leader comes! — the man of God 
O'er the wide waters lifts His mighty rod. 
And onward treads — the circling waves retreat 
In hoarse deep murmurs, from his holy feet; 
And the chased surges, inly roaring, show 
The hard wet sand and coral hills below. 
With limbs that falter, and with hearts that swell, 
Down, down they pass — a steep and slippery dell. 
Around them rise, in pristine chaos hurled, 
The ancient rocks, the secrets of the world ; 
The flowers that blush beneath the ocean green. 
And caves, the sea-calves' low-roofed haunt, are seen. 
Down, safely down the narrow pass they tread; 
The beetling waters storm above their head : 
While far behind retires the sinking day, 
And fades on Edom's hills its latest ray. 
Yet not from Israel fled the friendly light, 
Or dark to them or cheerless came the night, 

56 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Still in their van, along the dreadful road, 
Blazed broad and fierce the brandished torch of God. 
Its meteor glare a tenfold lustre gave 
On the long mirror of the rosy wave: 
While its blest beams a sunlike heat supply, 
Warm every cheek, and dance in every eye — 
To them alone — for Mizraim's wizard train 
Invoke for light their monster gods in vain ; 
Clouds heaped on clouds their struggling sight confine, 
And tenfold darkness broods above their line. 
Yet on they fare, by reckless vengeance led. 
And range unconscious through the ocean's bed. 
Till midway now — that strange and fiery form 
Showed his dread visage lightning through the storm; 
With withering splendor blasted all their might, 
And brake their chariot wheels and marred their cour- 
ser's flight. 
"Fly, Mizraim, fly!" — From Edom's coral strand 
Again the prophet stretched his dreadful wand: — 
With one wild crash the thundering waters sweep, 
And all is waves — a dark and lonely deep. 

Reginald Heber. 

The Destruction of Pharaoh 

ly^OURN, Mizraim, mourn! The weltering 

*'•*■ wave 

Wails loudly o'er Egyptia's brave 

Where, lowly laid, they sleep; 
The salt sea rusts the helmet's crest; 
The warrior takes his ocean-rest. 

Full far below the deep. 

The deep, the deep, the weary deep! 

Wail, wail, Egyptia! mourn and weep! 
For many a mighty legion fell 
Before the God of Israel. 

Wake, Israel, wake the harp. The roar 
Of ocean's wave on Mizraim's shore 

57 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Rolls now o'er many a crest. 
Where, now, the iron chariot's sweep? 
Where Pharaoh's host? Beneath the deep 

His armies take their rest. 
Shout, Israel! Let the joyful cry 
Pour forth the notes of victory; 
High let it swell across the sea. 
For Jacob's weary tribes are free! 

John Ruskin, 

The Passage of the Red Sea 

/^N the sand and sea-weed lying, 
^-^ Israel poured her doleful sighing, 
While before the deep sea flowed, 
And behind fierce Egypt rode, 
To their fathers' God they prayed, 
To the Lord of Hosts for aid. 

On the margin of the flood 

With lifted rod the prophet stood; 

And the summoned east wind blew, 

And aside it sternly threw 

The gathered waves that took their stand, 

Like crystal rocks, on either hand, 

Or walk of sea-green marble piled 

Round some irregular city wild. 

Then the light of morning lay 
On the wonder-paved way, 
Where the treasures of the deep 
In their caves of coral sleep. 
The profound abysses, where 
Was never sound from upper air. 
Rang with Israel's chanted words: 
King of king and Lord of lords! 

Then, with bow and banner glancing. 
On exulting Egypt came, 

58 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

With her chosen horsemen prancing, 
And her cars on wheels of flame, 
In a rich and boastful ring, 
All around her furious king. 

But the Lord from out his cloud — 

The Lord looked down upon the proud," 

As the host drave heavily 

Down the deep bosom of the sea. 

With a quick and sudden swell 

Prone the liquid ramparts fell; 

Over horse and over car, 

Over every man of war, 

Over Pharaoh's crown of gold, 

The loud thundering billows rolled. 

As the level water spread, 

Down they sank, they sank like lead, 

Down without a cry or groan. 

And the morning sun that shone 

On myriads of bright-armed men. 

Its meridian radiance then 

Cast on a wide sea, heaving as of yore 

Against a silent, solitary shore. 

Then did Israel's maidens sing. 

Then did Israel's timbrels ring. 

To Him, the King of kings that in the sea 

The Lord of lords had triumphed gloriousl\ ! 

Henry Hart Milman. 

Passage of the Red Sea 

IN doubt, in weariness, in woe, 
* The host of Israel flee ; 
Behind them rode the raging foe, 
Before them was the sea. 

The angry waters at their feet. 
All dark and dread, rolled on; 

And where the sky and desert meet, 
Spears flashed against the sun. 

59 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

But still along the eastern sky 

The fiery pillar shone, 
And o'er the waves that rolled so high 

It bade them still come on. 

Then Moses turned the sea toward, 

And raised his hand on high ; 
The angry waters know their lord : 

They know him, and they fly. 

Where never gleamed the red sunlight, 
Where foot of man ne'er trod, 

Down, down they go, and left and right 
The wall of waters stood. 

Full soon along that vale of fear, 
With cymbals, horns, and drums, 

With many a steed and many a spear 
The maddening monarch comes. 

A moment — far as eye could reach. 
The thronging myriads tread ; 

The next — the waste and silent deep 
Was rolling o'er their head. 

Anonymous. 



The Song of Miriam 

"Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed glori- 
ously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the 
sea." — Exod. xv. 21. 

"V/E daughters and soldiers of Israel look back! 
^ Where — ^where are the thousands that shadowed 

your track, 
The chariots that took the deep earth as they rolled 
The banners of silk and the helmets of gold ? 

60 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Where are they — the vultures whose beaks would have 

fed 
On the tide of your hearts ere the pulses had fled? 
Give glory to God, who in mercy arose, 
And strewed 'mid the waters the strength of our foes. 

When we traveled the waste of the desert by day, 
With his banner-cloud's motion he marshalled the way: 
When we saw the tired sun in his glory expire 
Before he walked, in a pillar of fire. 

But this morn, and the Israelites' strength was a reed 
That shook with the thunder of chariot and steed. 
Where now are the swords and their far-flashing 

sweep ? 
Their lightnings are quenched in the depth of the deep. 

O thou, that redeemest the weak one at length 
And scourgest the strong in the pride of their strength, 
Who boldest the earth and the sea in thine hand, 
And rulest Eternity's shadowy land — 

To thee let our thoughts and our offerings tend, 
Of virtue the Hope, and of sorrow the Friend. 
Let the incense of prayer still ascend to thy throne, 
Omnipotent — glorious — eternal — alone. 

Anonymous. 



Sound the Loud Timbrel 

COUND the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! 
*^ Jehovah hath triumphed — His people are free. 
Sing — for the pride of the tyrant is broken. 

His chariots, his horsemen, all splendid and brave. 
How vain was their boasting — the Lord hath but 
spoken. 

And chariots and horsemen are sunk in the wave. 
Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! 
Jehovah has triumphed — His people are free. 

6i 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Praise to the Conqueror, praise to the Lord, 

His word was our atrow, His breath was our sword ! — 

Who shaU return to tell Egypt the story 

Of those she sent forth in the hour of her pride? 
For the Lord hath looked out from His pillar of glory, 

And all her brave thousands are dashed in the tide. 
Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! 
Jehovah has triumphed — His people are free. 

Thomas Moore. ■ 



Song at the Red Sea 

Exodus XV. I 

CING to Jehovah, who gloriously triumphs, 
^ The God of our fathers, the God of the free! 
For Jah is our strength, our song and salvation! 
The horse and his rider are drowned in the sea! 

The Lord is a warrior, His name is Jehovah ! 

Thy right hand, O Lord! is exalted in might! 
Thou dashest in pieces the foes of Thy people! 

Thy wrath has consumed them and swept them to 
night! 

The chariots of Pharaoh, his captains and princes, 
The hosts of oppression, the legions of wrong. 

The blast of Thy nostrils with floods overwhelms them, 
And Israel shouts in her thunders of song! 

What God of the nations is like to Jehovah? 

Glorious in holiness, fearful in praise! 
All people shall fear Him, all ages adore Him! 

He reigns in His glory, through infinite days! 

George Lansing Taylor. 



62 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

The First Song of Moses 
Exodus XV 
I 

^JOW shall the praises of the Lord be sung; 

For he a most renowned Triumph won : 
Both horse and men into the sea he flung. 

And them together there hath overthrown. 
The Lord is he whose strength doth make me strong 
And he is my salvation and my song: 
My God, for whom I will a house prepare 
My father's God whose praise I will declare. 

II 

Well knows the Lord to war what doth pertain, 

The Lord Almighty is his glorious name ; 
He Pharaoh's chariots, and his armed train 

Amid the sea o'erwhelming, overcame; 
Those of his army that are most renowned 
He hath together in the Red Sea drown'd, 
The deeps a covering over them were thrown, 
And to the bottom sunk they like a stone. 

Ill 

Lord, by thy power thy right hand famous grows; 

Thy right hand. Lord, thy foe destroyed hath ; 
Thy glory thy opposers overthrows, 

And stubble-like consumes them in thy wrath. 
A blast but from thy nostrils forth did go 
And up together did the waters flow; 
Yea, rolled up on heaps the liquid flood 
Amid the sea, as if congealed, stood. 

h-.,, IV 

I will pursue them (their pursuer cried), 
I will o'ertake them, and the spoil enjoy; 

My lust upon them shall be satisfied ; 

With sword unsheathed my hand shall them de- 
stroy. 

63 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Then from thy breath a gale of wind was sent; 
The billows of the sea quite o'er them went. 
And they the mighty waters sunk into 
E'en as a weighty piece of lead will do. 

V 

Lord, who like thee among the Gods is there! 

In holiness so glorious who may be! 
Whose praises so exceeding dreadful are! 

In doing wonders, who can equal thee! 
Thy glorious right hand thou on high didst rear, 
And in the earth they quickly swallowed were, 
But thou in mercy onward hast conveyed 
Thy people, whose redemption thou hast paid. 

VI 

Them by thy strength thou hast been pleased to bear 

Unto a holy dwelling place of thine; 
The nations at report thereof shall fear, 

And grieve shall they that dwell in Palestine, 
On Edom's princes shall amazement fall; 
The mighty men of Moab tremble shall 
And such as in the land of Canaan dwell, 
Shall pine away, of this when they hear tell. 

VII 

They shall be seized with a horrid fear. 

Stone-quiet thy right hand shall make them be, 
Till passed over. Lord, thy people are; 

Till those pass over, that were* brought by thee. 
For thou shalt make them to thy hill repair. 
And plant them there (O Lord) where thou art heir, 
E'en there where thou thy dwelling hast prepared. 
That holy place which thine own hands have reared. 

VIII 

The Lord shall ever and forever reign. 
His sovereignty shall never have an end: 

64 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

For when as Pharaoh did into the main 

With chariots and with horsemen, down descend, 
The Lord did back again the sea recall, 
And with those waters overwhelm'd them all. 
But through the very inmost of the same 
The seed of Israel safe and dry-shod came. 

George Wither. 



Miriam 

/^H, for that day, that day of bliss entrancing 
^^ When Israel stood, her night of bondage o'er. 
And leaped in heart to see no more advancing 

Egypt's dark host along the desert shore; 
For scarce a ripple now proclaimed where lay 
The boasting Pharaoh and his fierce array. 

Miriam! she silent stood, that sight beholding, 

And bowed with sacred awe her wondering head. 

Till lo! No more their hideous spoils withholding 
The depths indignant, spurned their buried dead ; 

And all along that sad and vengeful coast 

Pale corpses lay, — a monumental host. 

Miriam! She saw; then all to life awaking, — 
*'Sing to the Lord," with a great voice she cried; 

"Sing to the Lord," their many timbrels shaking, 
Ten thousand ransomed hearts and tongues replied; 

While, leading on the dance in triumph long 

Thus* the great Prophetess broke forth in song: 

"Oh, sing to the Lord, 

Sing his triumph right giorious; 
"O'er horse and rider 

Sing his right arm victorious; 
Pharaoh's horsemen and chariots 

And captains so brave. 
The Lord hath thrown down 

In the bottomless wave. 

65 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

"Man of war is the Lord 

And Jehovah is His name; 
We trusted his pillar 

Of cloud and of flame. 
Proud boasters, ye followed 

But where have ye gone? 
Down, down in the waters 

Ye sank like a stone. 

"O Lord thou didst blow 

With thy nostrils a blast 
And upheaved, the huge billows 

Like mountains stood fast! 
Egypt shuddered with wonder 

That pathway to see. 
Those depths all congealed 

In the heart of the sea. 

" *I, too, will march onward' 

(The enemy cried) 
I shall soon overtake 

I, the spoil will divide 
I will kill'— O my God! 

The depths fell at thy breath 
And like lead they went down 

In those waters of death. 

"But o'er us the soft wings 

Of thy mercy outspread. 
To thine own chosen dwelling 

Our feet have been led. 
Palistirina, affrighted. 

The tidings shall hear. 
And your hearts, O ye nations. 

Shall wither with fear. 

"Thus brought in with triumph 

Safe planted and blessed 
On thy own holy mountain 

Thy people shall rest. 

66 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Shout! Pharaoh is fallen 

To rise again never. 
Sing! The Lord he shall reign 

Forever and ever." 

E. Dudley Jackson. 



Exodus x: 21-2 J 

VSyHEN Israel dwelt in Egypt's land, 
^^ And groan'd beneath the tyrant's pow'r, 
O Lord, 'twas Thine Almighty hand 

Sustain'd him thro' that dreary hour. 
When all the air at noon of day 

Was filled with gloom "which might be felt," 
Thy smile was still a cheerful ray 
In every tent w^here Israel dwelt. 

And thus, O Lord, the faithful heart 

Believes that it will ever be; 
Thy love, we know, will ne'er depart 

From those who truly trust in Thee. 
When all the world grows dark through sin, 
With them Thy smile will still be found ; 
Diffusing joy and peace within. 

While all seems dark and cheerless round ! 

J. W. BURGON. 



Mount Sinai 

PROM Sinai's top the lightnings flashed; 

The thunders rolled around — around — 
As if the heavenly orbs had clashed 
Together wnth destructive bound, 
And down their shattered fragments hurled 
Upon a desolated world. 

«7 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And on the mount there hung a cloud, 
Dark as the midnight's darkest gloom; 

And blew a trumpet long and loud, 
Like that which shall wake the tomb. 

And terror like a sudden frost 

Fell on the Israelitish host. 

In radiant fire the mighty God 

Descended from the heavenly throne; 
• And on the mountains where He trod, 

A pavement as of sapphire stone 
Appeared like glittering stars of even 
When storms have left the deep-blue heaven. 

And as the wondering people turned 

To see the glory of the Lord, 
The smoke — as if a furnace burned 

Within the mountain, swelled and roared, . 
And all its lofty summits shook 
Like sedge leaves by the summer brook. 

And Moses from the trembling crowd 
Went up to God's dark secret place 

And heard from the surrounding cloud 
His message to the Hebrew race, 

Who vowed with fervor and accord 

To keep the covenant of the Lord. 

For they had marked the trump that blew 

The fires that gleamed, the peals that roared — 

In shadowed glory shine to view 
The presence of the eternal Lord, 

Bright as His mercy chose to give. 

For none can see His face and live. 

HORATIUS BONAR. 



68 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

At Sinai 

P\OWN from the mist-clad mountain Moses came, 

His face aglow with some strange inward flame — 
Down the long slope with winged feet he trod, 
And vision clear, for he had talked with God! 

Before the mount he saw his people stand, 
As he had bidden. Slow he raised his hand — 
A solemn stillness bound them as they saw. 
Their restive hearts athrill with reverent awe. 

Deep was his voice and tender. E'en the birds 
Poised on their moveless wings to hear his words. 
From out the misty cloud that wraps the hill, 
There came the voice of God, so small and still. 

And thus it said: "These words to Israel bring: 
As I have borne them forth on eagle's wing 
From Egypt's bonds, so will I guard them still 
If they obey my voice, and do my will. 

"Yea, Israel shall a priestly people be, 
A most peculiar treasure unto Me; 
If they do heed the Law that I do give. 
My people, say! Will ye obey and live?" 

With hands uplifted stood the leader there, 
His face ablaze! And on the desert air 
There rose a murmur swelling loud and true, 
"All that the Lord doth bid us, will we del" 

So went he once again within the mist 
That hid the somber mountain, grey, cloud-kissed; 
And as they watched, the waiting people saw 
Him come again, and in his arms, the Law! 

Thus came the Word — and thus the right to hear 
The message, that the world might know and share. 
Yea, theirs the gift! But theirs the promise, too. 
Whate'er the Lord hath spoken, that we'll do. 

69 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Tho' there at Sinai's foot, in age long dead, 
Our fathers hath the sacred covenant said, 
Their blood is ours! and their promise true! 
Whate'er the Lord hath bidden, shall we do ! 

Isabella R. Hess. 



Divine Love 

"And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thine heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
might." — Deut. vi, 5. 

T KNOW not what this world would be 
''■ (Not even by analogy) 
If love were banished for a time 
To other realm, or other clime; 
But no, it is not bound by space. 
But w^ith illimitable grace 
Glides through all worlds, and lives in all, 
All hearts and souls it does enthral ; 
Some, where the spirit seldom dw^elt 
'Tis not quite banished or forgot; 
It were indeed a dreary spot 
' Without one single ray of love. 
That heavenly blessing from above, 
For what were virtue, goodness, truth, 
Without the light of love? in sooth 
They would not be — they could not last 
Without this heavenly antepast; 
This foretaste of celestial love 
Vicegerent here, but crowned above. 
Oh ! love, thou pure and holy thing. 
What are the blessings thou dost bring? 
Nay, rather, what is happiness 
But love in some new guise or dress? 
Even from birth 'tis love that fills 
Each avenue of soul— instils 

70 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Its spiritual influence 

And makes us all love excellence, 

Whatever bears the noble stamp 

Of great and good ; 'tis this pure lamp 

Which lights our path and gives us hope, 

Extends our views to higher scope. 

We love to read, to hear, to earn, 

And w^hy? because our spirits burn. 

Anonymous. 

'^Moses as Lamp-Bearer^^ 

A CURIOUS fancy seized on Moses' soul, 
"**■ To know if God, the Lord, slept like a man: 
So Allah sent an angel from on high, 
Who to the Holy Prophet this wise spake — 
"Take, Moses, in thy hands two burning lamps. 
Then take thy stand and hold thj^self upright, 
With both arms stretched full length, and keep them 

so ; 
And watch then the whole night through and 

through." 
Then Moses took the lamps and placed himself 
And held them fast on high a long, long time. 
But at the last such weariness came on him. 
That the lamps fell to earth from out his hands. 
"Thus," cried the angel, "thus, O simple man, 
Thus would the sun and moon and starry host, 
Thus would the joined fabric of the world 
In waste and ruin fall, did Allah sleep!" 

William Stigand. 



Aaron s Breastplate 

•"Aaron shall bear their names before the Lord 
upon his two shoulders for a memorial. . . . Aaron 
shall bear the names of the children of Israel in the 
breast-plate of judgment upon his heart, for a me- 

71 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

morial before the Lord continually." — Exodus xxvli. 
12, 29. 

TN the wondrous breastplate golden, 
Safely on His bosom holden, 
See the jewels from the mine! 
Amethyst and onyx wearing 
Mystic marks, and each one bearing 
Traces of the hand divine. 

Sapphires 'mid the gorgeous cluster 
Sparkle with celestial luster. 

Like the crystal dome above; 
Ruby rare and topaz blending 
In that glory never-ending, 

Safe upon the breast of love. 

Emerald and beryl throwing 
Chastened hues, the fairer growing 

As the jasper blends the rays. 
Chrysoprase, like kings' attire 
Glowing like a star of fire. 

Or a soul that loves to praise. 

Who the love and praise can measure 
Ere revealed this hidden treasure 

One by one in dazzling light! 
On his breast our High Priest wears them, 
On his shoulder, see he bears them, 

Ever in our Father's sight. 

Anna Shipton. 



Lights in the Temple 

"And Aaron shall burn thereon sweet incense every 
morning; when he dresseth the lamps he shall burn 
incense upon it. And when Aaron lighteth the lamps 
at even, he shall burn incense upon it; a perpetual 

72 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

incense before the Lord, throughout your genera- 
tions." — Exod. XXX. 7, 8. 

^OW the stars are lit In heaven, 

We must light our lamps on earth ; 
Every star a signal given 

From the God of our new birth: 
Every lamp an answ^er faint. 
Like the prayer of mortal Saint. 

Mark the hour and turn this vv^ay, 
Sons of Israel, far and near! 

Wearied w^Ith the world's dim day, 
Turn to Him whose eyes are here, 

Open, watching day and night. 

Beaming unapproached light! 

With sweet oil-drops in His hour 
Feed the branch of many lights, 

Token of protecting power, 
Pledg'd to faithful Israelites, 

Emblem of the anointed Home, 

When the glory deigns to come. 

Watchers of the sacred flame, 
Sons of Aaron ! serve in fear, — 

Deadly Is th' avenger's aim. 

Should th' unhallowed enter here; 

Keen his fires, should recreants dare 

Breathe the pure and fragrant air. 

There is One will bless your toll — 
He who comes In Heaven's attire, 

Morn by morn, with holy oil; 
Eve by eve, with holy fire! 

Pray! — your prayer will be allowed, 

Mingling with His incense cloud! 

John Keble. 



73 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Bezalel 

DEZALEL, filled with wisdom to design 

"*"^^ Stones, precious wood, rich-embroidered fabrics, 

gold, 
Fed not the few with cunning manifold 
Nor empty loveliness; his art divine 
Set up a tabernacle as a sign 
Of oneness for a rabble many-souled, 
So that each span of desert should behold 
A nomad people with a steadfast shrine. 

But we, its sons, who wander in the dark, 
Footsore, far-scattered, growing less and less, 

What whiteness glooms our brotherhood to mark, 
What promised land our journey's end to bless! 

We are, unless we build some shrine or ark, 
A dying rabble in a w^ilderness. 

Israel Zangwill. 



Moses and the Angel 

Praise HirUj Al-Mutahali! Whose decree is wiser 
than the wit of man can see 

'HTIS written in the chapter of "the Cave," 

'*' An Angel of the Lord, a minister, 
Had errands upon earth, and Moses said, 
"Grant me to wend with thee, that I may learn 
God's ways with men." The Angel answering, said: 
"Thou canst not bear with me ; thou wilt not have 
Knowledge to judge; yet if thou followest me, 
Question me not, whatever I shall do, 
Until I tell thee." 

Then th^y fdund a ship 
On the sea-shore, wherefrom the Angel struck 
Her boards and brake them. Moses said, "Wilt' drown 

74 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

The mariners? This is a strange thing wrought!" 
"Did I not say thou couldst not bear with me?'*- 
The Angel answered — "Be thou silent now!" 

Yet farther, and they met an Arab boy; , ,. 
Upon his eyes with mouth invisible '.^r to 
The Angel breathed ; and all his warm blood froze, 
And, with a moan, he sank to earth and died. 
Then Moses said, "Slayest thou the innocent 
Who did no wrong? this is a hard thing seen!" 
"Did I not tell thee," said the Minister, 
"Thou wouldst not bear with me? Question, me 
not!" 

Then came they to a village, where there Stood. ' 

A lowly hut; the garden-fence thereof '"' '*■* H 

Toppled to fall; the Angel thrust it down.' 

A ruin of gray stones, and lime, and tiles, , 

Crushing the lentils, melons, saffron, beans, ' r 

The little harvest of the cottage folk. 

"What hire," asked Moses, "hadst thou for this deed. 

Seeming so evil?" 

Then the Angel said, 
"This is the parting betwixt me and thee: . i ;• 

Yet will I first make manifest the things \ "'V/r 
Thou couldst not bear, not knowing, that my Lord — 
'Exalted above all reproach' — be praised, >,j- ,,,^1; 

The ship I broke serveth poor fisherfolk 
Whose livelihood was lost, because there came 
A king that way seizing all boats found whole : 
Now they have peace. Touching the Arab boy. 
In two moons he had slain his mother's jSOji,,,^^^^.,,^ 
Being perverse; but now his brother lives .j^^.. .jrj'p. 
Whose life unto his tribe was more, and he ..,.-| Ij^a/*. 
Dieth blood-guiltless. For the garden wall,. .^Aq\ 
Two goodly youths dwell there, offspring, of one;-A^ ^' 
That loved his Lord, and underneath the stones 

75 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The father hid the treasure, which is theirs. 
This shall they find, building their ruin up, 
And joy will come upon their house! 

But thou, 
Journey no more with me, because I do 
Nought of myself, but all by Allah's will." 

Edwin Arnold. 

Moses and the Dervish 

GOD, that heaven's seven climates hath spread 
forth, 
1^0 every creature, even as is the worth. 
The lot apportions, and the use of things. 
If to the creeping cat were given wings 
No sparrow's egg would ever be a bird. 

Moses the Prophet, who with God conferred, 
Beheld a Dervish, that, for dire distress 
And lack of clothes to hide his nakedness 
Buried his body in the desert sand. 
This Dervish cried : 

"O Moses, whom the Hand 
Of the Most High God favors! make thy prayer 
That he may grant me food and clothes to wear 
Who knows the misery of me and the need." 

Then Moses prayed to God, that he would feed 
And clothe that Dervish. 

Nine days after this, 
Returning from Mount Sinai in bliss. 
Having beheld God's face, the Prophet met 
The Dervish in the hands of Justice, set 
Between two officers; and all about 
The rabble followed him with hoot and shout 
And jeer. 

The Prophet asked of those that cried, 
"What hath befallen this man?" 

And they replied, 

76 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

"He hath drunk wine, and having slain a man, 
Is going to the death." 

Moses began 
To praise the Maker of the Universe, 
Seeing that his prayer, though granted, proved per- 
• verse, 

Since God to every living soul sets forth 
The circumstance according to the worth. 

Owen Meredith. 

The ''Moses'' of Michael Angela 

A ND who is He that sculptured in huge stone, 

*^ Sitteth a giant, where no works arrive 
Of straining Art, and hath so prompt and live 

The lips, I hasten to their very tone? 

Moses is He — Ay, that makes clearly known 
The chin's thick boast, and brow's prerogative 
Of double ray; so did the mountain give 

Back to the world that visage, God was grown 

Great part of! Such was he when he suspended 
Round him the sounding and vast waters; such 
When he shut sea on sea o'er Mizraim. 

And ye, his hordes, a vile calf raised, and bended 
The knee? This Image had ye raised, not much 
Had been your error in adoring Him. 

Robert Browning. 

Moses on Mount Nebo 

I 

LJE stood on Nebo's lofty crest, 

* "■• Above him arched the azure sky, 

Beneath the valley was at rest, 

A gem in Nature's pageantry; 
Behind him lay the toil of years, 

And chains of bondage meekly borne. 
And pathways moistened with his tears — 

A life of many a pleasure shorn. 

77 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

II 

No more for him the drowsy Nile, 

Where long had slaved God's chosen race, 
No more the swarth Egyptian's guile, 

The trembling hand, the haggard face; 
For he had led his brethren far 

Beyond the whip, beyond the chain, 
And now beneath the brightest star 

Lay Canaan sweet with hill and plain, 

III 

He saw that land whose portals fair 

Would never open , to his tread, 
And Jordan old was flowing where 

He ne'er would rest his weary head ; 
And Amram's son from Nebo's crest 

Gazed long upon the matchless scene; 
An untold longing filled his breast 

To reach the promised pastures green. 

IV 

He knew that on the mountain high, 

Far from the vale that slept below, 
'Neath heaven's softest canopy 

The ceaseless years Vv^ould o'er him go; 
That Israel, anchored safe at last, 

Where Jordan singing, sought the sea. 
With toil and danger ever past. 

Would, thro' God's watchful care, be free. 

V 

In sweet communion with his God • ; 

Stood Israel's leader true and bold; i X 
His grave was not to be the sod 

Where Canaan's rose its petals fold; 
He bowed his head and looked no more, 

Perchance he for a moment wept; 
He knew the pilgrimage was o'er. 

God touched him gently and he slept. 

78 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

VI 

No mortal eye hath found the place 

Where Moses laid his mantle down. 
For high on Nebo's rugged face, 

His service done, he won the crown; 
Jehovah made that lonely grave 

And left His servant old alone ; 
Afar from Jordan's sunlit wave 

He sleeps, his sepulchre unknown. 

I. Solomon. 



'■P he Kiss of God 

VV/HEN the great leader's task was done, 
^^ He stood on Pisgah's height, 
And saw, far ofiF, the westering sun 
Drop down into the night; 

Saw, too, the land in which, alas! 

He might not hope to dwell 
Spread fairly out ; and then — for so 

Talmudic legends tell — . ..iO 

L 

Jehovah touched him and he slept; ^y'^ 

And smooth the mountain sod 
Was levelled o'er him and 'twas writ 

''Died by the kiss of God." 

The kiss of God ! We talk of death 

In many learned ways, — 
We know so much, — which of them all 

So simple in its praise y:^ i 

As this which from the oldest days 

Has treasured been apart, 
To comfort in this heel of time 

The mourner's aching heart? 

79 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Wc walk our bright or desert road 

And, when we reach the end, 
Bends o'er us with gentle face 

The Universal Friend. 

Upon our lips his own are laid: 

We do not strive or cry. 
The kiss of God! Upon that kiss 

It is not hard to die. 

John White Chadwick. 



Weep, Children of Israel 

"Y|r7EEP, weep for him, the man of God, — 
^^ In yonder vale he sunk to rest ; 
But none of earth can point the sod 

That flowers above his sacred breast. 
Weep, children of Israel, weep! 

His doctrine fell like heaven's rain, 

His words refreshed like heaven* s dew — 

Oh, ne'er shall Israel see again 
A chief, to God and her so true. 

Weep, children of Israel, weep! 

Remember ye his parting gaze, 

His farewell song by Jordan's tide. 

When, full of glory and of days. 

He saw the promised land — and died. 

Weep, children of Israel, weep! 

Yet died he not as men who sink, 

Before our eyes to soulless clay ; 
But, changed to spirit, like a wink 

Of summer lightning pass'd away. 
Weep, children of Israel, weep! 

Thomas Moorb. 
80 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

''No Man Knoweth His Sepulchre" 

TY/HEN he who, from the scourge of wrong, 

'* Aroused the Hebrew tribes to fly, 
Saw the fair region promised long, 
And bowed him on the hills to die; 

God made his grave, to men unknown, 
Where Moab's rocks a vale infold, 

And laid the aged seer alone, 

To slumber while the world grows old. 

Thus still, whene'er the good and just 
Close the dim eye on life and pain, 

Heaven watches o'er their sleeping dust 
Till the pure spirit comes again. 

Though nameless, trampled, and forgot, 

His servant's humble ashes lie. 
Yet God has marked and scaled the spot. 

To call its inmate to the sky. 

William Cullen Bryant. 



Burial of Moses 

**And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, 
over against Beth-peor; but no man knoweth of his 
sepulchre unto this day." 

DY Nebo's lonely mountain, 

^^ On this side Jordan's wave, 

In a vale In the land of Moab, 

There lies a lonely grave; 
But no man built that sepulchre, 

And no man saw it e'er; 
For the angels of God upturned the sod, 

And laid the dead man there. 

8i 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

That was the grandest funeral 

That ever passed on earth ; 
Yet no man heard the trampling, 

Or saw the train go forth ; 
Noiselessly as the daylight 

Comes when the night is done, 
And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek 

Grows into the great sun; 

Noiselessly as the spring time 

Her crown of verdure weaves, 
And all the trees on all the hills 

Unfold their thousand leaves: 
So without sound of music 

Or voice of them that wept, 
Silently down from the mountain's crown 

The great procession swept. 

Perchance the bald old eagle 

On gray Beth-peor's height 
Out of his rocky eyry 

Looked on the wondrous sight; 
Perchance the lion stalking 

Still shuns that hallowed spot; 
For beast and bird have seen and heard 

That which man knoweth not. 

But, when the warrior dieth, 

His comrades of the war, 
«''• With arms reversed and muffled drums, 

Follow the funeral car: 
They show the banners taken ; 

They tell his battles won ; 
And after him lead his masterless steed, 

While peals the minute-gun. 

Amid the noblest of the land 

Men lay the sage to rest, 
And give the bard an honored place, 

With costly marbles drest, 

82 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL : 

In the great minster transept 

Where lights like glories fall, 
And the sweet choir sings, and the organ rings 

Along the emblazoned hall. ' 

This was the bravest warrior 

That ever buckled sword; 
This the most gifted poet 

That ever breathed a word; 
And never earth's philosopher 

Traced with his golden pen 
On the deathless page truths half so sage 

As he wrote down for men. 

And had he not high honor? — 

The hillside for a pall! 
'■■'To lie in state while angels wait. 

With stars for tapers tall! 
And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes, 

Over his bier to w^ave, 
And God's own hand, in that lonely land, ' 
To lay him in his grave! — 

In that strange grave without a name, 

Whence his uncoffined clay 
Shall break again — O wondrous thought! — 

Before the judgment-day, 
And stand, with glory wrapped around. 

On the hills he never trod, 
And speak of the strife that won our life 

In the heavenly peace of God. 

O lonely tomb in Moab's land ! 

O dark Beth-peor's hill! 
Speak to these curious hearts of ours. 

And teach them to be still: 
God hath his mysteries of grace, 
.; Ways that we cannot tell, 

He hides them deep, like the secret sleep 
Of him he loved so well. 

Cecil Frances Alexander. 

83 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Ode to the Statue of Moses 

The Masterpiece of Michael Angelo 

CTATUE! whose giant limbs 

*^ Old Buanorotti planned, 

And Genius carved with meditative hand, 
Thy dazzling radiance dims 

The best and brightest boast of sculpture's favorite 
land. 

What dignity adorns 

That beard's prodigious sweep! 

That forehead, awful with mysterious horns 
And cogitation deep, 

Of some uncommon mind the rapt beholder warns. 

In that proud semblance, well 

My soul can recognize 
The prophet fresh from converse with the skies; 

Nor is It hard to tell 
The liberator's name, the guide of Israel. 

Well might the deep respond 

Obedient to that voice. 
When on the Red Sea shore he waved his wand 

And bade the tribes rejoice, 
Saved from the yawning gulf and the Egyptian's 
bond! 

Fools! in the wilderness 

Ye raised a calf of gold, 
Had ye then worshipped what I now behold 

Your crime had been far less — 
For ye had bent the knee to one of godlike mould! 

Anonymous. 



84 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 



tt 



Speak, Lord, for Thy Servant HearetK 

LIUSH'D was the evening hymn, 
* *• The temple courts were dark; 
The lamp was burning dim 

Before the sacred ark: 
■When suddenly a voice Divine 
Rang through the silence of the shrine. 

The old man, meek and mild. 

The priest of Israel slept; 
His watch, the temple child, 

The little Levite kept. 
And what from Eli's sense was seal'd 
The Lord to Hannah's son reveal'd. 

Oh! give me Samuel's ear, 

The open ear, O Lord. 
Alive and quick to hear 

Each whisper of Thy word; 
Like him to answer at Thy call 
And to obey Thee first of all. 

Oh! give me Samuel's heart, 

A lovely heart that waits; 
Where in thy house Thou art. 

Or watches at Thy gates. 
By day and night, a heart that still 
Moves at the breathing of Thy will. 

Oh! give me Samuel's mind, 

A sweet unmurmuring faith, 
Obedient and resign'd. 

To Thee in life and death. 
That I may read with child-like eyes. 
Truths that are hidden from the wise. 

James Drummond Borthwick. 



85 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Jephthah's Daughter 

CINCE our country, our God — oh, my sire! 
^ Demand that thy daughter expire; , 
Since thy triumph was bought by thy vow — 
Strike the bosom that's bared for thee now! 

And the voice of my mourning is o'er, 
And the mountains behold me no more. 
If the hand that I love lay me low 
There cannot be pain in the blow! 

And of this, O my father! be sure — 

That the blood of thy child is as pure 

As the blessing I beg ere it flow, 

And the last thought that soothes me below. 

Though the virgins of Salem lament, 
Be the judge and the hero unbent! 
I have won the great battle for thee, 
And my father and country are free. 

When this blood of thy giving hath gush'd, 
When the voice that thou lovest is hush'd. 
Let my memory still be thy pride ; 
And forget not I smiled as I died. 

Lord Byron. 



JephthaJis Daughter 

"And it became a custom in Israel that the daugh- 
ters of Israel went from year to year to lament for the 
daughter of Jephthah, the Gileadite, four days in the 
year." — Judges xi. 

TTHERE is a lonely mountain-top, 
**• A curse upon it lies; 
No blade of grass upon it grows, 
No flowers greet the eyes. 

86 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

But cold, bare cliffs of granite stand, 

Like sentinels of stone, 
Year after year, through wind and snow, 

Around a craggy throne. 

And on the topmost, coldest peak 

There is a spot of woe — 
A little tomb, an old gray tomb. 

Raised centuries ago. 

For there within her grave she lies 

Plucked in an evil hour — 
The martyred daughter of her race, 

Israel's fairest flower! 

There Jephthah's maid forever sleeps — 
The victim that he vowed — 

But, four days In the dreary year. 
The loneliness Is loud. 

And Gilead's mourning daughters 
Up from the valley throng — 

The mountain glens reverberate 
With sorrow and with song! 

Oh, loud and long and wild they wail 

The light untimely spent, 
And dance upon the mountain-top 

A choral of lament. 

And as they dance they seem to see 

Another dancer, too. 
And hear, amidst the measure rise. 

The voice of her they rue! 

Jehoash. 
(Translated by Alter Brody.) 



87 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Samson 
(From "Samson Agonistes") 

O WHEREFORE was my birth from heaven fore- 
told 
Twice by an angel, who at last, in sight 
Of both my parents, all in flames ascended 
From off the altar, where an offering burned, 
As in a fiery column charioting 
His godlike presence, and from some great act 
Or benefit revealed to Abraham's race? 
Why was my breeding ordered and prescribed 
As of a person separate to God, 
Destined for great exploits, if I must die 
Betrayed, captive, and both my eyes put out, 
Made of my enemies the scorn and gaze; 
To grind in brazen fetters under task 
With this Heaven-gifted strength? O glorious 

strength. 
Put to the labor of a beast, debased 
Lower than bond-slave! Promise was, that I 
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver; 
Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him 
Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves. 
Himself in bonds under Philistine yoke. 

John Milton. 



Ruth 

CHE stood breast-high amid the corn, 

Clasped by the golden light of morn, 
Like the sweetheart of the sun, 
Who many a glowing kiss had won. 

On her cheek an autumn flush 
Deeply ripened ; — such a blush 
In the midst of brown was born 
Like red poppies grown with corn. 

88 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Round her eyes her tresses fell, — 
Which were blackest none could tell; 
But long lashes veiled a light 
That had else been all too bright. 

And her hat with shaded brim, 
Made her tressy forehead dim — 
Thus she stood among the stooks, 
Praising God with sweetest looks. 

Sure, I said. Heaven did not mean 
Where I reap thou shouldst but glean; 
Lay thy sheaf adown and come 
Share my harvest and my home. 

Thomas Hood. 



Ruth and Naomi 

pAREWELL? Oh, no! It may not be; 
*- My firm resolve is heard on high ! 
I will not breathe farewell to thee, 

Save only in my dying sigh. 
I know not that I now could bear 

Forever from thy side to part. 
And live without a friend to share 

The treasured sadness of my heart. 

I will not boast the martyr's might 

To leave my home without a sigh, — 
The dwelling of my past delight, 

The shelter where I hoped to die. 
In such a duty, such an hour. 

The weak are strong, the timid brave, 
For love puts on an angel's power, 

And faith grows mightier than the grave. 

For rays of heaven serenely bright 
Have gilt the caverns of the tomb; 

89 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And I can ponder with delight 

On all its gathering thoughts of gloom. 

Then, mother, let us haste away 

To that blest land to Israel given, ^ 

Where faith unsaddened by decay 
Dwells nearest to its native heaven. 

For where thou goest, I will go; 

With thine my earthly lot is cast. 
In pain and pleasure, joy and woe, 

Will I attend thee to the last. 
That hour shall fmd me by thy side, 

And where thy grave is, mine shall be; 
Death can but for a time divide 

My firm and faithful heart from thee. 

William Oliver Bourn Peabody. 

Ruth 

f EAVE thee alone in sorrow! Ask me not, 
Oh, mother of my dead love, I entreat; 
Although I fain would linger near the spot 

Where rests one I on earth no more shall greet. 

Should we who shared our pleasures side by side. 
Apart in sorrow and bereavement be? 

No; I will cleave to thee, whate'er betide. 

Knowing no comfort, unless shared with thee. 

Then seek not to divide my path from thine ; 

Tread not alone thy journey, full of woe; ' 
For his dear sake thy people shall be mine, 

And whither thou goest will I also go. 

H. Hyman. 

Ruth 

T^HE plume-like swaying of the auburn corn 
By soft winds to a dreamy motion fann'd, 
Still brings me back thine image — Oh ! forlorn 
Yet not forsaken Ruth— I see thee stand 

go 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Lone 'midst the gladness of the harvest band — 

Lone as the wood-bird on the ocean's foam, 
Fall'n in its weariness. Thy fatherland 

Smiles far awaj^! yet to the sense of home, 
That finest, purest, which can recognize 

Home in affection's glance, for ever true 
Beats thy calm heart ; and if thy gentle eye 

Gleam tremulous through tears, 'tis not to rue 
Those words, immortal in their deep Love's tone, 

''Thy people and thy God shall be mine own." 

Felicia Hemans. 

The Moabitess 

CWEET Moab gleaner on old Israel's plain, 
^ Thy simple story moveth like a power. 
Thy pure, calm face looks from the ripened grain, 
Wherein thou gleanest, on our toil and pain. 
And in the light of thy soft eyes again 

Our dead lives bud and blossom into flower. 
But lives like thine, sweet Ruth, are holy things, 

Rich, simple, earnest in their wealth of duty; — 
God's love forever to their music sings. 
His angels shield them with their sheltering wings. 
His spirit truth and trust and comfort brings, 

And God Himself smiles on their godlike beauty. 

Phillips Brooks. 

Ruth and Naomi 

A RABBI'S child and Puritan's once met; 

^^ And, like those fabled mates, with each a 

wing. 
That only soar when they together cling, 

These comrades happy joined in mutual debt 

For rich ancestral stores most alien. Yet 

As greatest pleasures know no lasting spring — ■ 
Death came ; but sunny Mem'ry comforting. 

In tears w^ith brightest rays her rainbow set. 

91 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Might Naomi not often glean with Ruth, 
And thus give time a double joy and worth? 

It takes the each and all from every clime 
To cull auspiciously the seeds of truth; 
To win anew a Paradise for earth 

And reap in joy the harvest — truth sublime. 

Lowell Courier. 



Song of Saul Before His Last Battle 

YV/ARRIORS and chiefs! should the shaft or the 
^^ sword 

Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord, 
Heed not the corpse, though a king's, in your path. 
Bury your steel in the bosom of Gath! 

Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow. 
Should the soldiers of Saul look away from the foe, 
Stretch me that moment in blood at thy feet! 
Mine be the doom which, they dared not to meet. 

Farewell to others, but never we part, 
Heir to my royalty, son of my heart! 
Bright is the diadem, boundless the sway. 
Or kingly the death, which awaits us to-day. 

Lord Byron. 

The Field of Gil boa 

nPHE sun of the morning looked forth from his 
throne 
And beamed on the face of the dead and the dying. 
For the yell and the strife, like the thunder, had flown. 
And red on Gilboa the carnage was lying. 



And there lay the husband that lately was prest 
To the beautiful cheek that was tearless and ruddy, 

But the claws of the eagle were fixed in his breast 
And the beak of the vulture was busy and bloody. 

92 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

And there lay the son of the widowed and sad, 
Who yesterday went from her dwelling forever, 

Now the wolf of the hills a sw^eet carnival had 

On the delicate limbs that had ceased not to quiver. 

And there came the daughter, a delicate child. 

To hold up the head that was breathless and hoary, 

And there came the maiden, all frantic and wild 
To kiss the loved lips that were gasping and gory. 

And there came the consort that struggled in vain 
To stem the red tide of a spouse that bereft her, 

And there came a mother that sunk 'mid the slain 
To weep o'er the last human stay that was left her. 

Oh! bloody Gilboa, a curse ever lie 

Where the king and his people were slaughtered to- 
gether. 
May the dew and the rain leave thy herbage to die. 

Thy flocks to decay and thy forests to wither. 

William Knox. 



Kynge David, Hys Lamente Over the 

Bodyes of Kynge Saul of Israel 

and His Sonne Jonathan 

The beautye of the lande ys slayne. 
How lowlye are the myghte layne! 

I 

"^OW lette us shede the brinie teare, 

^ ^ And lette us heave the pityinge moane ! — 

But whyle we strowe the willowe biere 
For Ysrael's pryde to lye upon ; 

Oh! lette not Gath the tidynges heare 
Oh, tell yt not yn Askalon, 
Lest every w^ayling sounde of ours 
Rayse triumpe-shoutes in heathen bowers! 

93 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

II 

May raine or dew droppe neuer lyghte 

Upon thy mountaynes, Gilboa! 
May offerynge flame ne'er crowne thyne heighte 

In deepe of nyght or noon of daye ! 
Where worsted yn unholie fyghte 

The myghtle flung hys shielde away; 
Cast meanlie on the fouled greene, 
As he had ne'er anoynted beene ! 

Ill 

From battel fyelde they turned them ne'er 

With bowe unstrunge, or blade untryede — 
Pleasant They W^ere Yn Life, and Fayre 
Nor Yette Did Deathe Theyre Loues Divide — 
Theyre nervous armes mighte scathelesse dare 

To bearde the lyon yn hys pryde ; 
Yette theyre lyghte limbs made fleeter speede 
Than eagles stoopynge o'er the meade. 

IV 

Ye daughteres of the lande, deplore, 
For Saule the bounteous and the bolde, 

Whose kynglie hande hath founde you store 
Of crimson geare and clothe of golde. 

Alack! that hande can giue noe more, 
That worthie harte ys stille and colde; 

Unknown amongst the deade and dyinge, 

The mightie with the mean are lying! — 

V 

Ah ! Jonathan ! my brother ! lorne 
And friendless I must looke to be ! — 

That harte whose woe thou ofte hast borne 
Is sore and strickene nowe for thee. 

Young brydegroome's loue on brydal morne, 

Oh! yt was lyghte to thyne for me. 

94 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Thy tymelesse lotte I now must playne, 
Even on thyne owne high places slayne ! 
How lowHe now the mightie are ! 
How still the weapons of the war. 

Sir Philip Sidney. 



David^s Lament 



f ET the voice of the mourner be heard on the moun- 
""^ tain, 

And woe breathe her sigh over Besor's blue wave; 
Upon Gilboa's hill there is opened a fountain, 

And its fast-flowing stream is the blood of the 
brave ! 
Oh! dry be that hill from the rains of the morning, 

On its brow may no dew of the evening fall. 
But the warriors of Israel, from conquest returning, 

View herbless and withered the death-place of Saul! 
From the borders of Judah let gladness be banished, 

Ye maidens of Israel, be deep in your woe; .^ 
For the pride of the mighty in battle is vanished. 

The chief of the sword, and the lord of the bow. 
And long shall the chieftains of Gilead deplore them, 

And mourn the dark fate of the high and the brave; 
The song of the minstrel will oft be breathed o'er 
them. 

And holy the tear that shall fall on their grave. 

Robert Stephen Hawker. 



David and Jonathan 

r\^ the brow of Gilboa is war's bloody stain, 
^^ The pride and the beauty of Israel is slain; 
O publish it not in proud Askelon's street, 
Nor tell it in Gath, lest in triumph they meet, 

For how are the mighty fallen! 

95 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

O mount of Gilboa, no dew shalt thou see, 
Save the blood of the Philistine fall upon thee; 
For the strong-pinioned eagle of Israel is dead, 
Thy brow is his pillow, thy bosom his bed ! 

O how are the mighty fallen! 

Weep, daughters of Israel, weep o'er his grave! 
What breast will now pity, what arm will now save? 
O my brother 1 my brother 1 this heart bleeds for thee, 
For thou wert a friend and a brother to me! 

Ah, how are the mighty fallen! 

LucRETiA Davidson. 



The Lamentation of David Over Saul and 

Jonathan His Son 

II. Sam. i: 17. 

I 

'HY beauty, Israel, is gone 



T 



Slain in the places high is he; 
The mighty now are overthrown ; 

O thus how Cometh it to be ! 
Let not this news their streets throughout 

In Gath or Askalon be told; 
For fear Philistia's daughters flout, 

Lest vaunt the uncircumcised should. 

II 

On you, hereafter, let no dew, 

You mountains of Gilboa, fall ; 
Let there be neither showers on you 

Nor fields that breed an offering shall. 
For there with shame away was thrown 

The target of the strong (alas), 
The shield of Saul, e'en as of one. 

That ne'er with oil anointed was. 

96 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

III 

Nor from their blood that slaughter'd lay, 

Nor from the fat of strong men slain, 
Came Jonathan his bow away, 

Nor drew forth Saul his sword in vain. 
In lifetime they were lovely fair, 

In death they undivided are. 
More swift than eagles of the air 

And stronger they than lions were. 

IV 
Weep, Israel's daughters, weep for Saul, 

Who you with scarlet hath array'd; 
Who clothed you with pleasures all 

And on your garments gold hath laid. 
How comes it he, that mighty was 

The foil in battle doth sustain! 
Thou, Jonathan, oh thou (alas) 

Upon thy places high wert slain. 

V 

And much distressed is my heart, 

My brother Jonathan, for thee; 
My very dear delight thou wert, 

And wonderous was thy love to me; 
So wonderous, it surpassed far 

The love of woman (every way). 
Oh, how the mighty fallen are! 

How warlike instruments decay! 

George Wither. 

Jehovah-Nissi. The Lord My Banner 

D Y whom was David taught 
To aim the deadly blow. 
When he Goliath fought, 

And laid the Hittite low? 
Nor sword nor spear the stripling took. 
But chose a pebble from the brook. 

97 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

'Twas Israel's God and King 

Who sent him to the fight; 
Who gave him strength to sling, 

And skill to aim aright. 
Ye feeble saints, your strength endures 
Because young David's God is yours. 

Who ordered Gideon forth, 

To storm the invaders' camp 
With arms of little worth, 

A pitcher and a lamp ? 
The trumpets made his coming known 
And all the host was overthrow^n. 

Oh ! I have seen the day 

When with a single word, 
God helping me to say, 

"My trust is in the Lord," " :'^' *^ 

My soul hath quell'd a thousand foeis, 
Fearless of all that could oppose. 

But unbelief, self-will, 

Self-righteousness and pride, 
How often do they steal 

My weapon from my side! 
Yet David's Lord, and Gideon's friend, 
Will help his servant to the end. 

William Cowper. 



The Song of David 

LJE sang of God, the mighty source 

^ ■'" Of all things, — that stupendous force, 

Of which all strength depends ; 
From whose right arm, beneath whose eyes, 
All period, power, and enterprise 

Commences, reigns and ends. 

98 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

The world, the clustering spheres he made, 
The glorious light, the soothing shade, 

Dale, champaign, grove and hill, 
The multitudinous abyss 
Where secrecy remains in bliss; 

And wisdom hides her skill. 

Tell them I Am, Jehovah said 

To Moses, while earth heard in dread 

And smitten to the heart. 
At once, above, beneath, around. 
All Nature without voice or sound. 

Replied, ''O Lord Thou art." 

Christopher Sharp. 



The Poet's Soul 

"VY/OULD you know the poet's soul. 

Why he doth wondrous sing? 
Come, read the tale the Rabbis told 
Of Israel's poet king. 

From the orb of day, a golden ray. 

From the moon its silvery beam, 
From the twinkling star in heaven afar. 

He took its shimmering gleam. 

From the azure sky and the clouds on high, 
He borrowed their mingled glow, 

And the verdant green, — all the varying scene, 
Of beauteous world below. 

And the grateful praise for joyous da^^s. 

That comes from out the heart, 
And the happy smile of romping child 

Yet free from guile and art. 

99 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

From the murmuring brook, its plaint he took 

Whilst dreamily flowing by; 
And the whispering breeze amidst the trees 

Lent its low and mournful sigh. 

And the dulcet note from the warbling throat 

Of the lark as it soared on high, 
And the linnet's song, as it sped along 

'Neath the dome of the summer sky. 

And blending these beautiful things one with the other 

In one harmonious whole, 
The Lord breathed it into the sovereign bard, — 

For such was King David's soul. 

Anonymous. 



King David 

/^F Israel's sweetest singer now I sing, 

^^ His holy style and happy victories; 

Whose muse was dipt in that inspiring dew, 

Archangels 'stilled from the breath of Jove, 

Decking her temples with the glorious flowers 

Heaven rained on tops of Sion and Mount Sinai. 

Upon the bosom of his ivory lute 

The cherubim and angels laid their breasts; 

And when his consecrated fingers struck 

The golden wires of his ravishing harp, 

He gave alarum to the host of heaven 

That, wing'd with lightning, brake the clouds, and cast 

Their crystal armour at his conquering feet. 

Of this sweet poet, Jove's musician, 

And of his beauteous son, I press to sing: 

That help, divine Adonai, to conduct 

Upon the wings of my well-tempered verse 

The hearers' minds above the towers of heaven 

And guide them so in this thrice haughty flight, 

lOO 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Their mounting feathers scorch not with the fire, 
That none can temper but thy holy hand ; 
To thee for succour flies my feeble muse, 
And at thy feet her iron pen doth use. 

George Peele. 



To David 

r\ ISRAEL'S God-anointed warrior king, 

^^ Who from the Lord of Hosts thy valor drew, 

And single-handed dread Goliath slew 
(Though boasting he swift death should on thee 

bring) : 
Nor e'en yet feared when wrathful Saul did fling 

A furious javelin at thy head to do 

Thee harm, for Jesse's son that one well knew 
Should one day after him be Israel's king; 
'Tis not alone thy lion strength of heart, 

Nor yet thy triumphs nor thy hero's deeds 
That lift my soul in boundless love to thee! 
Ah, no! 'Tis this in but the lesser part, 

For more than all, my soul exultant feeds 
On thine more precious gift of psaltery. 

Miriam Suhler. 



David 

r^O you wonder why such longing 

Transport, pain and love impassioned 
In the psalms are interwoven? 

Listen how God's bard was fashioned. 

Murmurings of brooks and fountains. 

Passion of tempestuous seas. 
Solemn sounds of winds and forests, 

The lorn nightingale's love-pleas. 

lOI 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And the paeans of men who triumphed 
Over grief and tempting glee — 

All these divers notes God gathered 
From the fount of melody. 

And He fused them in one anthem, 

Bade the music live, and lo ! 
David rose, he who to mankind 

How to speak with God did show. 

Therefore lives there such a j'earning. 

Such a rapture, exultation, 
In the songs that David chanted 

For the heart of every nation. 

Alter Abelson. 



The Harp of Faith 

A T midnight, so the rabbis tell, 
^*' . When David slept profound, 
A harp suspended on his couch 
Gave forth a trembling sound. 

Up sprang the ro^-al bard inspired. 

His fingers touched the chord. 
And with strange gladness in his soul. 

In psalms he praised the Lord. 

At midnight, when the doubts assail, 

A.nd anxious fears surround, 
O Soul of mine, amid all gloom, .'. 

Give forth a joyous sound. 

O bid me seize the harp of faith. 

And sing a holy strain, 
Until each day my life and thought 

Resound in glad refrain. 

Abram S. Isaacs, 

1 02 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 



The Harp of David 

"YJT/HEN the night her vision is weaving 

'" With moonlight and starlight for warp, 
The King in his chamber arises 
And wakens the voice of his harp. 

He sees not the hands of him playing, 

He hears but a melody sweet; 
He hears but the heart of him beating 

With a musical, magical beat. r 

He gazes out through the window 

On the world in beauty bedight — 
Forgotten the throne and the sceptre 

In a holier, higher delight! 

He sees like a picture before him, 

The quiet, green fields where he spent 

His youthful years as a shepherd. 
His only palace — a tent — 

His sceptre — the flute of the shepherd. 

Carved of the cedar- wood hard ; 
His fortune and lonely treasure — 

The soulful pride of the bard. 

Then pours he his soul on the harp-strings — 

Forgetful of sorrow and pain — 
The old, gray monarch of Judah 
Is a youthful Poet again ! 

Jehoash. 
(Translated by Alter Brody.) 



•103 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 
Absalom 



npHE pall was settled. He who slept beneath 
^ Was straighten'd for the grave; and, as the folds 
Sunk to the still proportions, they betray'd 
The matchless symmetry of Absalom. 
His hair was yet unshorn, and silken curls 
Were floating round the tassels as they sway'd 
To the admitted air, as glossy now 
As when, in hours of gentle dalliance, bathing 
The snowy fingers of Judea's daughters. 
His helm was at his feet: his banner, soil'd 
With trailing through Jerusalem, was laid. 
Reversed, behind him: and the jewell'd hilt, 
Whose diamonds lit the passage of his blade, 
Rested, like mockery, on his cover'd brow. 
The soldiers of the king trod to and fro, 
Clad in tne garb of battle ; and their chief, 
The mighty Joab, stood beside the bier, 
And gazed upon the dark pall steadfastly. 
As if he fear'd the slumberer might sti/. 
A slow step startled him. He grasp'd his blade 
As if a trumpet rang; but the bent form 
Of David enter'd, and he gave command, 
In a low tone, to his few followers. 
And left him with his dead. The king stood still 
Till the last echo died ; then, throwing off 
The sackcloth from his brow, and laying back 
The pall from the still features of his child. 
He bow'd his head upon him, and broke forth 
In the resistless eloquence of woe. 

"Alas! my noble boy! that thou shouldst die! 

Thou, who wert made so beautifully fair! 
That death should settle in thy glorious eye. 
And leave his stillness in this clustering hair! 
How could he mark thee for the silent tomb! 

My proud boy, Absalom! 

104 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

"Cold is thy brow, my son ! and I am chill, 
As to my bosom I have tried to press thee! 

How was I wont to feel my pulses thrill. 

Like a rich harp-string, yearning to caress thee, 

And hear thy sweet *My Father' from these dumb 
And cold lips, Absalom! 

*'But death is on thee. I shall hear the gush 

Of music, and the voices of the young; 
And life will pass me in the mantling blush, 

And the dark tresses to the soft winds flung; — 
But thou no more, with thy sweet voice, shalt come 

To meet me, Absalom! 

"And oh ! when I am stricken, and my heart. 
Like a bruised reed, is waiting to be broken, 

How will its love for thee, as I depart, 

Yearn for thine ear to drink its last deep token! 

It were so sweet, amid death's gathering gloom. 
To see thee, Absalom ! 

"And now, farewell! 'Tis hard to give thee up, 
With death so like a gentle slumber on thee; — 

And thy dark sin ! — Oh ! I could drink the cup, 
If from this woe its bitterness had won thee. 

May God have call'd thee, like a wanderer, home, 
My lost boy, Absalom !" 

He cover'd up his face, and bowed himself 
A moment on his child : then, giving him 
A look of melting tenderness, he clasp'd 
His hands convulsively, as if in prayer; 
And, as if strength were given him of God, 
He rose up calmly, and composed the pall 
Firmly and decently — and left him there — 
As if his rest had been a breathing sleep. 

Nathaniel Parker Willis. 



105 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

In That Day 

A BSALOM! Absalom! 
**■ Put back thy fragrant hair! 

Loud is the city's hum. 
Why dost thy linger there 

To set soft hearts on fire? 
That thou may'st reign and be 

What mainly men desire 
What best it liketh thee? 

Hark to the City's hum, 

Absalom, Absalom ! 

Absalom, Absalom! 
Canst thou not clearer see 

The thronging forms that came 
Beneath the branching tree? 

The green ways of the wood, 
And dropping from the dart 

The small dull pool of blood 
That drains the traitorous heart? 

See the dim form.s that come, 

Absalom, Absalom. 

A. C. Benson. 



The Chafnber Over the Gate 

n. Sam. xviii: 33. 

IS it so far from thee 
* Thou canst no longer see. 
In the Chamber over the Gate, 
That old man desolate. 
Weeping and wailing sore 
For his son, who is no more? 
O Absalom, my son ! 

Is it so long ago 

That cry of human woe 

106 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

From the walled city came,. 
Calling on his dear name, 
That it has died away 
In the distance of to-day? 
O Absalom, my son ! 

There is no far or near, 

There is neither there nor here, 

There is neither soon nor late, 

In that Chamber over the Gate, 

Nor any long ago 

To that cry of human woe, 

O Absalom, my son! 

From the ages that are past 
The voice comes like a blast, 
Over seas that wreck and drown, 
Over tumult of traffic and town; 
And from ages yet to be 
Come the echoes back to me, 
O Absalom, my son ! 

Somewhere at every hour 
The watchman from his tower 
Looks forth, and sees the fleet 
Approach of the hurrying feet 
Of messengers, that bear 
The tidings of despair. 
O Absalom, my son! 

. He goes forth from the door. 
Who shall return no more. 
With him our joy departs; 
The light goes out in our hearts ; 
In the Chamber over the Gate 
We sit disconsolate. 
O Absalom, my son ! 

That 't is a common grief 
Bringeth slight relief; 

107 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Ours is the bitterest loss, 
Ours is the heaviest cross; 
And forever the cry will be, 
"Would God I had died for thee, 
O Absalom, my son !" 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 



On Viewing a Statue of David 

'X'HIS was the shepherd boy who slung the stone 
And killed the giant; sunshine and the wind 
Had given his harp so clear and strange a tone 
That all the world forgave him when he sinned. 

The gently formed and stately Greek who stood 
On the Piazza, throned in classic pride, 

'Was not the boy who roamed through field and wood, 
Fighting and singing on the bright hillside. 

Swift on the mountains, swift to save or slay; 

Eager and passionate and lithe of form; 
Fighting and singing, pausing but to pray, 

Unto his God of music and of storm. 

The bare hillside and sharp rocks castellate 

Rang with the clanging of his bow; 
Where in the dawn of the world's love and hate, 

He found and would not slay his sleeping foe. 

No sorrowful shades of the evil years 

Falls in the boy's face of the wood and wild; 

Vanished are rags and lust and passionate tears; 
The King is dead, immortal stands the child. 

Eva Gore-Booth. 



io8 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Sleep 

/^F all the thoughts of God that are 
^^ Borne inward unto soul afar 
Along the Psalmist's music deep, 
Now tell me if there any is 
For gift or grace, surpassing this — 
"He giveth his beloved sleep?" 

wfZ 7f^ 7f^ TfT 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



Psalm VII 

• 

r\ LORD, my God, in Thee I put my trust, 
^^^ From them that persecute me save and guard; 
Lest I be straight confounded in the dust, 

And they, like raving lions tearing hard. 
Devour my captive soul in furious lust. 

By no deliverer in their conquest marred. 
O Lord, my God, if I have done this wrong 
Or if aught wicked be my deeds among; 

If I have evil wrought unto my friend, 

If I have not preserved alive my foe, 
Let then the enemy my body rend 

And o'er my spirit the proud victor go. 
Let him my fame with base dishonor blend. 

And crush my life upon the earth below. 
Stand up, O Lord, in anger at my foes, 
Who in fierce indignation 'gainst me rose! 

Arise, O Lord, and fight on my behalf, 

Give judgment for me as Thou hast ordained! 

So shall with joy the congregation laugh, 
And flock around, in reverence constrained. 

Then for this cause lift up Thy mighty staff. 

For those whose trust is on Thy power contained! 

All men our God shall judge, help me, O Lord ! 

Heed Thou my righteousness and upright word! 

109 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

May soon ungodly ways decay and cease, 
And Thy protection aid the humble just! 

The hearts and inmost veins th' Almighty sees, 
For help from God appearing is my lust. 

Unto the true of heart He giveth ease, 
Nor will permit them to lie in the dust. 

A righteous Judge is God, patient and strong. 

And each day angered by a sinning throng. 

Will they not hear, th' avenging sword He whets. 
Doth bend His bow and towers aloft in ire; 

The instruments of death to hand He sets. 
Against the persecAitor's arrows dire. 

All fruitless are the plots my foe begets; 
Sorrow doth he conceive, of ill the sire. 

Graven hath he, and digged a noisome pit; 

By him prepared, he falleth into it. 

Upon his head shall his bad works return, 

His wickedness recoil upon his pate; 
In self-inflicted torments shall he burn 

And pain of soul that none can satiate. 
But I in grateful thanks to God will turn 

And all His righteousness will celebrate. 
The name of God our Lord will I extol. 
And to the heavens my tongue His fame shall roll. 
Alfred S. Schiller-Szinessy. 



My Times Are in Thy Hands! 

"I trusted in thee, O Lord; I said, Thou art my 
God. My times are in Thy hand!" — Ps. xxxi., 14, 15. 

1\/IY times are in Thy hand! 
^^^ I know not what a day 
Or e'en an hour may bring to me. 
But I am safe while trusting Thee, 
Though all things fade away. 

no 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

All weakness, I 
On Him rely 
Who fixed the earth and spread the starry sky. 

My times are in Thy hand ! 

Pale poverty or wealth, 
Corroding care or calm repose, 
Spring's balmy breath or winter's snows, 
Sickness or buoyant health, — 
Whate'er betide, 
If God provide, 
'Tis for the best; I wish no lot beside. 

My times are in Thy hand ! 

Should friendship pure illume 
And strew my path with fairest flowers, 
Or should I spend life's dreary hours 
In solitude's dark gloom, — 
Thou art a friend, 
Till time shall end 
Unchangeably the same; In Thee all beauties blend. 

My times are In Thy hand ! 

Many or few my days, 
I leave with Thee, — this only pray. 
That by Thy grace I, every day 
Devoting to Thy praise. 
May ready be 
To welcome Thee 
Whene'er Thou com'st to set my spirit free. 

Christopher Newman Hall. 

''The Lord Is My Shepherd, I Shall Not 

Wanf 

The Lord my Shepherd Is, no want I know, 
He leadeth me where tranquil waters flow, 

I lie in pastures green. 
Yea, though I walk within the gloomy shade 
Where Death doth lurk, I will not be afraid. 

For on Thy staff I lean. 

Ill 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

In vain mine enemies would me despoil, 

My cup o'erfloweth still with wine and oil, 

My food Thou dost provide. 
Thy mercy and Thy goodness both will last, 
And when my days upon this earth are past. 

With Thee I yet shall bide. 

Re Henry. 

The Prayer of Solomon at the Consecration 

of the Temple 

A GORGEOUS structure! rich with fretted gold 
*^ And radiant with gems. A white robed choir, 
Sackbut and psaltery, and the tuneful harp 
Waft their sweet melody unto high Heaven. 
A mighty monarch bows his head in prayer. 
What boon has he to ask of pitying Heaven? 
Seeks he for riches, or for pomp and power 
Or asks he vengeance on unconquered foes? 
Peace! peace! he breathes a lowly prayer to Heaven, 
Even for others' sins as for his own. 

Asking forgiveness. 

Father! when man forgetting Thy just decree. 

Shall wrong his brother, and by fraud or wile 
Pervert the holy faith that leads to Thee 

And turn his heart to sinfulness and guile; 
Yet when they both are brought before Thy face, 

And purer feelings in each bosom strive. 
Hear Thou and judge in heaven Thy dwelling-place 

And when Thou hearest, have mercy and forgive. 

When Thy frail children, for their many sins. 

Shall smart beneath the oppressor's iron rod. 
And when the tortured conscience first begins 

To waken to the anger of its God ; 
Then when they come to Thee, that erring race. 

And pray that Thou the heavy load remove. 
Hear Thou in heaven Thy holy dwelling-place. 

And when Thou hearest forgive, oh ! God of love I 

112 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

And when the heavens are shut, and the parched land 

Must bear the burden of their sinful way, 
And Thou shalt teach them with Thy mighty hand, 

And bend their stubborn hearts to own Thy sway, — 
And they repent and turn towards this place, 

Let not Thine ear be deaf unto their voice ; 
But hear Thou from Thy heavenly throne of grace. 

Hear and forgive the children of Thy choice. 

And when the stranger, for Thy great name's sake 

Turneth toward this house, oh ! mighty King, 
Whatever supplication he may make, 

Whatever sin or sorrow he may bring; 
Yet when he bendeth here to ask Thy grace. 

And prayeth Israel's God to heal his grief. 
Hear Thou in Heaven, Thy dwelling-place, 

And when Thou hearest, forgive and grant relief. 

If any sin (and what man sinneth not). 

And Thou art wroth and angered with their shame, 
And the sad captive's lone and bitter lot 

Be theirs, until they call upon Thy name; 
Yet when they turn repentant towards this place, 

And pray to Thee in supplicating tone. 
Hear Thou in heaven Thy holy throne of grace, 

Forgive and have compassion on Thine own. 

No gorgeous temple, rich with fretted gold 

And bright with flashing gems, now meets our eye; 
No holy prophet king, like him of old, 

Now offers up our sacrifice on high ; 
Yet when we come with prayer to seek Thy face 

Each with sin's burning plague-spot in his breast, 
Hear Thou, oh God ! in heaven Thy dwelling-place 

And when Thou hearest, forgive, and grant us rest. 

Rebekah Hyneman. 



113 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Solomon and the Bees 

I 

"VY/HEN Solomon was reigning in his glory, 
^ Unto his throne the Queen of Sheba came; 
(So in the Talmud you may read the story) 

Drawn by the magic of the monarch's fame, 
To see the splendours of his court, and bring 
Some fitting tribute to the mighty King. 

II 

Nor this alone: much had her highness heard 

What flowers of learning graced the royal speech; 

What gems of wisdom dropped w^ith every word; 
What wholesome lesson he was wont to teach 

In pleasing proverbs; and she wished in sooth, 

To know if rumor spake the simple truth. 

Ill 

Besides, the Queen had heard (which piqued her 
most) 

How through the deepest riddles he could spy; 
How all the curious arts that women boast 

Were quite transparent to his piercing eye; 
And so the Queen had come — a royal guest — 
To put the Sage's cunning to the test. 

IV 

And straight she held before the monarch's view, 
In either hand a radiant wealth of flowers; 

The one, bedeckt with every charming hue, 

Was newly culled from Nature's choicest bowers. 

The other, no less fair in every part. 

Was the rare product of divinest art. 

V 

"Which is the true, and which the false?" she said. 
Great Solomon was silent. All amazed, 

114 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Each wondering courtier shook his puzzled head ; 

While at the garlands long the Monarch gazed, 
As one who sees a miracle, and fain. 
For very rapture ne'er would speak again. 

VI 

''Which Is the true?" Once more the woman asked, 
Pleased at the fond amazement of the king; 

"So wise a head should not be hardly tasked 

Most learned Liege, with such a trivial thing!" 

But still the sage was silent; it was plain 

A deep'ning doubt perplexed his royal brain. 

VII 

While thus he pondered, presently he sees, 
Hard by the casement — so the story goes — 

A little band of busy bustling bees. 
Hunting for honey in a withered rose. 

The monarch smiled, and raised his royal head: 

"Open the window!" — that was all he said. 

VIII 

The window opened at the King's command. 
Within the room the eager insects flew. 

And sought the flowers In Sheba's dexter hand. 
And so the king and all the courtiers knew. 

That wreath was Nature's — and the baffled Queen, 

Returned to tell the wonders she had seen. 

IX 

My story teaches (every tale should bear 
A fitting moral) that the wise may find. 

In trifles light as atoms of the air. 

Some useful lesson to enrich the mind — 

Some truth designed to profit or to please — 

As Israel's king learned wisdom from the bees. 

John Godfrey Saxe. 



115 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The Chief Among Ten Thousand 

(Song of Solomon) 

DEHOLD thou art all fair, my love; 

Thine eyes, thy locks, thy brow- 
All excellence and comeliness — 
How beautiful art thou! 

Stately thy neck, like David's tower, 

With splendor overspread ; 
Whereon a thousand bucklers hang, 

Shields of the mighty dead. 

Till the day break and shadows flee. 

Myself betake I will 
To the spice-mountain's fragrant heights. 

And incense-breathing hill. 

Thou art beautiful, my love, 

There is no spot in thee; 
Come then, my bride, from Lebanon, 

From Lebanon with me! 

Look from Amana's summit, look 

While I am by thy side; 
Look from the top of Shinar, look 

From Hermon, look, my bride! 

Love, sister, bride, thy beauty hath 

Ravished this heart of mine! 
Won it thou hast, and now it is 

No longer mine, but thine! 

Sister and spouse, how fair thy love, 

How better far than mine! 
Thy fragrance steals my heart; it Is 

No longer mine, but thine! 

ii6 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Thy lips are sweetness, and thy words 

Are pleasantness each one; 
Thy very raiment breatheth forth 

The breath of Lebanon. 

A garden is my sister-bride, 

A paradise shut in; 
A guardian spring, a fountain sealed, 

With water pure within. 

Thine are the pleasant fruits and flowers, 

Beneath, around, above; 
Spikenard and balm, and myrrh and spice, 

A paradise of love. 

Thine are the springs, which freshly o'er 

A thousand gardens run, 
The well of living waters Thou, 

And streams from Lebanon. 

Awake, O north wind ; come, thou south. 

Upon my garden blow! 
So shall the happy fragrance out 

From all its spices flow. 

Then forth through all His Paradise, 

Let my beloved rove, 
To breathe the gladness of its air 

And eat His fruits of love. 

HORATIUS BONAR. 



Solomon s Song 

"I sleep, but my heart waketh. . . .'* 

L_IAST thou heard the voice of my Belov*d? 
* *- Alack! is he silent still? 
Didst thou smell the perfume of his locks 
As he skipped upon the hill? 

117 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Did he say: "Go down and greet my Bride 

Amid the tents of Kedar? 
In the house whose rafters are of fir, 

Whose casements are of cedar. 

Is she dreaming at the pleasant feast 

All laved in spice and roses? 
With cool ointment on her throat and hands 

From secret garden-closes. 

O, why must I dwell far from her 
And from her running fountains? 

I am lonely on the barren heights, 

Yet God calls from the mountains. . . ." 

Behold ! if ye hear my lover cry 

As Ammi-nadib's lances. 
Then say: "She sleeps but her heart waketh, 

She neither sings nor dances." 

As fish-pools of Heshbon weep her eyes. 

As willows trail her tresses. 
Her neck is like a drooping tower. 

She yearns for thy caresses. 

Come down from the hills and harp to her, 
Come down and stay her sorrow: 

Is not the winter over and past 
And lilies bloom to-morrow? 

• • • • • 

Yet she only saith: "He bideth long, 
Ah, when is he returning?" 

Regina Miriam Block. 



The Rose of Sharon 

IN his chamber sat the Rabbi 
•^ Poring o'er the book of learning. 
When a knight with clanking armor 
Sudden stood upon the threshold. 

ii8 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Gleamed the cross upon his shoulder, 
And his countenance was warlike. 
For the tall commanding figure 
Was from Palestine returning. 

As he gazed at the Crusader 
Ceased the rabbi's heart its beating, 
But — upon his lips warm praises 
And a sturdy hand did clasp him. 

Spoke the Knight, ''We both are striving 
Toward the same end, good and holy; 
My strong arm I must confide in, 
But thy help's thy stronger spirit. 

"Seekers of the truth, O Rabbi, 
Comrades are we with one purpose. 
Pledge and promise your friendship, 
Take this rose from soil of Zion." 

Said the Rabbi: "Dost thou know not 
Wondrous miracle that clusters 
In the withered Rose of Sharon, 
How it blossoms in the love-glance? 

"Ah, how like the rose, my people! 
Parched and drooping in its exile; 
But when love-gleam rests upon it, 
Dwelling safe in happy freedom, 

"Swells its soul, then, in sweet rapture, 
Fragrant too, its spirit blossoms 
While it wakens to the new life 
And forgets its olden sorrows." 

Abram S. Isaacs. 



119 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Azrael 

l^ING SOLOMON, before his palace gate ' • 

"^^ At evening, on the pavement tessellate 

Was walking with a stranger from the East, 

Arrayed in rich attire as for a feast. 

The mighty Runjeet-Sing, a learned man, 

And Rajah of the realms of Hindostan. 

And as they walked the guest became aware 

Of a white figure in the twilight air, 

Gazing intent, as one who with surprise 

His form and features seemed to recognize; 

And in a whisper to the King he said: 

"What is yon shape, that, pallid as the dead. 

Is watching me, as if he sought to trace 

In the dim light the features of my face?" 

The King looked, and replied: "I know him well; 

It is the Angel men called Azrael. 

'Tis the Death Angel; what hast thou to fear?" 

And the guest answered : "Lest he should come near. 

And speak to me, and take away my breath! 

Save me from Azrael, save me from death! 

king, thou hast dominion o'er the wind, 
Bid it arise and bear me hence to Ind." 

The King gazed upward at the cloudless sky. 

Whispered a w^ord, and raised his hand on high, 

And lo! the signet-ring of chrysoprase 

On his uplifted finger seemed to blaze 

With hidden fire, and rushing from the west 

There came a mighty wind, and seized the guest 

And lifted him from earth, and on they passed, 

His shining garments streaming In the blast, 

A silken banner o'er the walls upreared, 

A purple cloud, that gleamed and disappeared. 

Then said the Angel, smiling: "If this man 

Be Rajah Runjeet-Sing of Hindostan, 

Thou hast done well in listening to his prayer; 

1 was upon my way to seek him there." 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 

1 20 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 



Wisdom 

(^ OD got me ere His works began, 
^^ The first in all creation's plan. 
From everlasting was my birth, 
Yea, from the first, before the earth. 
Ere there were deeps I was begot 
When water-laden springs were not. 
I was brought forth before, as yet 
The hills and mountains had been set; 
Ere He the land and wastes had made, 
Ere He the world's first dust had laid. 

When He prepared the heavens new. 
And on the face a circle drew 
Of the vast deep, there I was, too: 
When skies above He firm did frame; 
When the deep's fountains strong became; 
When to the sea its bounds He set, 
So that Its borders ne'er should get 
Beyond Its borders, and when He 
Marked out what should earth's bases be; 

I as His foster-child did stay 
With Him, delighting Him each day, 
And in His presence e'er did play. 
Exulting at His world in sight; 
The sons of men were my delight. 
Now children, hearken unto me; 
Who keep my ways they blest shall be. 
Instruction hear ye and be wise. 
Yea, no instruction e'er despise. 
Happy the man that heeds my say, 
That watches at my gates each day. 
That at my door-posts waits alway. 

For he that findeth me finds Life; 
He'll from the Lord get favour rife; 

121 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

But he that misses me, the goal, 
Does violence to his own soul; 
Yea, Death is courted by all those 
That hate me ever as my foes. 

Isidore Myers. 



Habakkuk's Prayer 

Habakkuk iii: 17-18. 

V/ET though the fig-tree should no burden bear, 
■*' Though vines delude the promise of the year; 
Yet though the olive should not yield her oil. 
Nor the parch'd glebe reward the peasant's toil; 
Though the tired ox beneath his labors fall, 
And herds in millions perish from the stall; 
Yet shall my grateful strings 
Forever praise Thy name; 
Forever Thee proclaim 
The everlasting God, the mighty King of kings. 

William Broome. 

Trust 

Habakkuk, iii: 17-18. 

nPHOUGH bare of bloom the broad-leafed fig 
■*■ And vines no luscious clusters show, 
And toil that sinewed arms bestow 
On olive erst with berries big 
Shall fail, and fields shall yield no meat, 
Nor herds more in the stables low, 
Nor woolly flocks in fold shall bleat, 
I yet with joy the Lord shall greet, 
With song my Strength and Saviour praise, 
Who renders like to hinds my feet 
And doth me to high places raise. 



M. M. 



122 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Trustfulness 

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and rely not 
on thine own understanding. — Prov. iii: 5. 

•ynOU, God, the only God, 
* Father of all! 
Thou gladly hearest us 

If we but call. 
When sin controls with power, 
When fears our hopes devour. 
In sorrow's chastening hour, 

Be Thou e'er nigh. 

Oft we forget Thy love, 

O God most kind ! 
Oft we neglect Thy law, 

Light to the blind. 
Our every joy is Thine, 
Gift of Thy grace divine, 
Long let Thy mercy shine 

On us below. 

Thou Master of all worlds. 

Of all adored! 
Aid us to do Thy will, 

Eternal Lord! 
Let not Thy love depart, 
Enter the prayerful heart, 
With wrong we then shall part 

For evermore. 

Where'er Thou leadest us, 

O Thou most High! 
Humbly we follow Thee, 

To do or die. 
Should 'st Thou our path make bright, 
Should'st Thou afflict with blight. 
Yet both by day and night 

We trust in Thee. j, Leonard Levy. 

123 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Watchman! What of the Night? 

THE burden of Dumah. Silence. What of the 
* night? 

I hear the Watchman crying through the dark. 

When to the golden cover of Thine Ark 
Thy Mercy seat, wilt Thou, O God of Light 
Return? How long wilt Thou Thy remnant smite, 

And thresh the scattered corn upon Thy floor, 

And winnow with Thy purging fan, before 
That last least grain be garnered! Will Thy might 

Destroy, nor spare? Lo, as a tale that is told, 
Our days pass quickly, nor as yet the thorn 

Yields to the fir. No more from us withhold 
The Prince of Peace, that unto us is born: 

Our bones, O Lord, are vexed, our eyes wax old 
With longing for that Messianic morn. 

James Mew. 



Come Not, O Lord 

/^OME not, O Lord, in the dread robe of splendor 
^^ Thou worest on the Mount, in the day of Thine ire ; 
Come veiled in those shadows, deep, awful, but tender. 
Which Mercy flings over Thy features of fire. 

Lord, Thou rememberest the night, when Thy nation 
Stood fronting her foe by the red-rolling stream; 

On Egypt Thy pillar frowned dark desolation. 
While Israel basked all the night in its beam. 

So, when the dread clouds of anger enfold Thee, 
From us, in Thy mercy, the dark side remove ; 

While shrouded in terror the guilty behold Thee, 
Oh, turn upon us the mild light of Thy love! 

Thomas Moore. 



124 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Think on God 

A Fragment 

"Can a maid forget her ornaments or a bride her 
attire? Yet my people have forgotten me days with- 
out number." — Jeremiah ii, 32. 

PORGET Thee, oh my God! and can this be? 

Earth with thy thousand voices answer me! 
Ye midnight heavens gazing with eyes so bright 
Upon the silent eloquence of night 
Speak of thy Maker! Speak thou glorious sun 
And thou enchanting moon! ethereal one 
Tell me of Him. 

Oh ! exquisite and clear 
Were those soft words upon my listening ear; 
Oh ! eloquence divine of Nature's voice 
Whose thrilling accents spoke: 

"Fond heart rejoice, 
For we forget not God; there is no hour 
When we could live without His love — His power." 
"Each moment," sighed the pale and blushing rose, 
"The wonders of my Maker I disclose;" 
And every flower throughout the garden fair 
Mingles its grateful perfume with the air, 
Like incense, rising with a heavenly prayer, 
Speaks each in varied tone its faithful love 
Crowned with eternal beauty from above. 
"Ah! not in thee forgetfulness," I said, 
"Emblems of faithful love! I too would shed 
My heart's best incense on that holy shrine 
To burn forever." Then, with sound divine. 
Teeming with melody the stately trees 
And graceful wheat bowing to every breeze 
In whispered chorus spoke His wonderous skill 
And their obedience to His blessed will. 
I gazed In rapture on those fields so sweet 
Whose every blade bowed low as If to meet 

125 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The faintest breath of wind which seemed to bring 
The thought of God upon its angel wing. 
Oh! Nature, exquisitely calm and bright! 
Your Maker is your life, your soul's delight. 

R. E. S. 



Job's Confession 

nPHOU canst accomplish all things, Lord of might; 
•■• And every thought is named to Thy sight, 
But O, Thy ways are wonderful, and lie 
Beyond the deepest reach of mortal eye. 
Oft have I heard of Thine Almighty power, 
But never saw Thee till this dreadful hour, 
O'erwhelmed with shame, the Lord of life I see, 
Abhor myself, and give my soul in Thee. 
Nor shall my weakness tempt Thine anger more; 
Man is not made to question, but adore. 

Edward Young. 



Dying — Shall Man Live Again? 

IN dying, will the parting breath 

Renew our life, — is there no death? 
Go ask it of the winter's snow. 
Or of the winds that fiercely blow. 
Or ask it of the moaning seas, 
Or of the naked, barren trees; 
Or of dead leaves that withered lie, 
Where autumn saw them fall and die. 

Ask of the stars that nightly gleam — 
Or ask it of the frozen stream 
That in a shroud, all glorious, white. 
Lies buried through the wintry night. 

126 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

This question of another birth, 
Go ask it of old mother earth; 
Ask it of her when she receives, 
The glory of the newer leaves. 

Ask it of joyous birds that sing, 

Or ask it of the new born spring; 

Or of the mists in valleys low, 

That sleep — where swollen rivers flow. 

Or ask the thunder-toned roar 

Of the old ocean breaking o'er 

The barriers of some rock-bound shore — 

This question of forevermore. 

And yet the answer, strong, and sure. 
That conquers every human fear, 
And wipes away each bitter tear — 
Is found in Him whose heart is pure; 
This is the answer that He gives, 
**Who dies to self^ forever lives." 

Albert Frank Hoffmann. 



The Destruction of Sennacherib 

npHE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 
^ And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and 

gold ; 
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the 

sea. 
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. 

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer Is green, 
That host with their banners at sunset were seen ; 
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath 

blown. 
That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown. 

127 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd; 
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill, 
And their hearts but once heav'd, and forever grew 
still! 

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, 
But through it there roll'd not the breath of his 

pride ; 
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, 
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. 

And there lay the rider distorted and pale. 
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail; 
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, 
The lances unlifted, the trumpets unblown. 

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, 
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; 
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, 
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord! 

Lord Byron. 



Jeremiah, the Patriot 

"Thou fallest away to the Chaldeans." — Jer. 
xxxvii. 13 

'T'HEY say, "The man is false, and falls away": 

Yet sighs my soul in secret for their pride; 
Tears are mine hourly food, and night and day 
I plead for them, and may not be denied. 

They say, "His words unnerve the warrior's hand, 
And dim the statesman's eye and disunite 

The friends of Israel" ; yet, in every land, 

My words, to Faith, are Peace, and Hope, and 
Might. 

128 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

They say, "The frenzied one is fain to see 

Glooms of his own; and gathering storms afar; — 

But dungeons deep, and fetters strong have we." 
Alas! Heaven's lightning would ye chain and bar? 

Ye scorners of th' Eternal ! wait one hour ; 

In His seer's weakness ye shall see His power. 

John Keble. 

The Ruler of the Nations 

"I have set thee this day over the nations, and over the 
kingdoms." — Jer. i. lo 

'X'HE Lord hath set me o'er the kings of earth, 
*" To fasten and uproot, to build and mar; 

Not by mine own fond will : else never war 
Had still'd in Anathoth the voice of mirth, 
Nor from my native tribe swept bower and hearth; 

Ne'er had the light of Judah's royal star 

Fail'd in mid heaven, nor trampling steed and car 
Ceas'd from the courts that saw Josiah's birth. 

" 'Tis not in me to give or take away, 
But He who guides the thunder-peals on high. 

He tunes my voice, the tones of His deep sway 
Faintly to echo in the nether sky. 

Therefore I bid earth's glories set or shine, 

And it is so; my words are sacraments divine." 

John Keble. 

The Fall of Jerusalem 

JERUSALEM! Jerusalem! 
J Thou art low; thou mighty one, 
How is the brilliance of thy diadem. 
How is the lustre of thy throne 
Rent from thee, and thy sun of fame 
Darken'd by the shadowy pinion 
Of the Roman bird, whose sway 

129 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

All the tribes of earth obey, 
Crouching 'neath his dread dominion, 
And the terrors of his name! 

How is thy royal seat — whereon 
Sat in dsLjs of yore 
Lowly Jesse's godlike son, 
And the strength of Solomon, 
In those rich and happy times 
When the ships from Tarshish bore 
Incense, and from Ophir's land, 
With silken sail and cedar oar, 
Wafting to Judea's strand 
All the wealth of foreign climes — 
How is thy royal seat o'erthrown ! 

Gone is all thy majesty; 

Salem ! Salem ! City of kings. 

Thou sittest desolate and lone. 

Where once the glory of the Most High 

Dwelt visibly enshrined between the wings 

Of Cherubins, within whose bright embrace 

The golden mercy-seat remain'd; 

Land of Jehovah ! view that sacred place 

Abandon'd and profaned! 

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

Alfred Tennyson. 

Hebrew Melody 
(Jeremiah x: 17) 

t7ROM the hall of our fathers in anguish we fled, 
* Nor again will its marble re-echo our tread, 
For the breath of the Siroc has blasted our name. 
And the frown of Jehovah has crushed us in shame. 

His robe was the whirlwind, his voice was the thunder, 
And earth, at his footstep, was riven asunder; 
The mantle of midnight had shrouded the sky. 
For we knew, where He stood by the flash of His eye. 

130 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

O Judah ! how long must thy weary ones weep, 
Far, far from the land where their forefathers sleep? 
How long ere the glory that brightened the mountain 
Will welcome the exile to Siloa's fountain ? 

Mrs. James Gordon Brooks. 



Lament for Jerusalem 

JERUSALEM! on thy ruin'd walls 
J The sun yet sheds its glittering rays, 
And shines amid thy lonely halls 

As once it shone in happier days: 
And Judea's clime is still as fair, 
Though Judah's sons are outcasts there. 

How long shall pagan foot profane 

Jehovah's hallowed shrine; 
And memories alone remain 

Of all that once was thine? 
How long shall we, thy children, roam 
As exiles from our native home? 

To weep o'er Salem's blighted fame, 

To gaze upon her strand. 
Is all the heritage w^e claim 

Within our fatherland ; 
To mourn o'er our free parents' graves 
That we, their children, are but slaves. 

When will that glorious hour come ? 

When shall we once more see 
Thy temple rear its stately dome, 

Thy children w^ith the free ? 
And thou, our fair, ill-fated land 
Amongst the nations take thy stand? 

Marion and Celia Moss. 



131 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Song of the Jewish Captives 

"YJT/E sat us down by Babel's streams 
** And dreamed soul-saddening memory's 
dreams ; 
And dark thoughts o'er our spirits crept 
Of Sion — and we wept, we wept ! 
Our harps upon the willows hung 
Silent, and tuneless, and unstrung; 
For they who wrought our pains and wrongs, 
Asked us for Sion's pleasant songs. 

How can we sing Jehovah's praise 
To those who Baal's altars raise? 
How warble Judah's freeborn hymns, 
With Babel's fetters on our limbs? 
How chant thy lays, dear Fatherland, 
To strangers on a foreign strand? 
Ah no ! we'll bear grief's keenest string. 
But dare not Sion's anthems sing. 

Place us where Sharon's roses blow; 
Place us where Siloe's waters flow; 
Place us on Lebanon, that waves 
Its cedars o'er our fathers' graves: 
Place us upon that holy mount. 
Where stand the temple, gleams the fount; 
And love and joy shall loose our tongues. 
To warble Sion's pleasant songs. 

Henry Neile. 

The Jewish Captive's Song 

(^ ONE is thine hour of might, 
^^ Zion, and fallen art thou; 
Thy temple's sacred height 

Is desecrated now. 
That I should live to see 

The ruins of that dome, 
And Judah's children be. 

Bondsmen, and slaves to Rome. 

132 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

When I saw heaven's wrath descending, 

Why 'scap'd I from the grave, 
While thousands died defending 

The shrine they could not save; 
But bless'd are those who sleep 

In their quiet resting place, 
That they did not live to weep 

O'er the scattering of their race. 

Marion and Celia Moss. 



The Hebrew MinstreTs Lament 

pROM the hills of the West, as the sun's setting 

beam 
Cast his last ray of glory o'er Jordan's lone stream, 
While his fast-falling tears with its waters were blent. 
Thus poured a poor minstrel his saddened lament : — 

"Awake, harp of Judah, that slumbering hast hung 
On the willows that weep where thy prophets have 

sung ; 
Once more wake for Judah thy wild notes of woe, 
Ere the hand that now strikes thee lies mouldering 

and low. 

"Ah, where are the choirs of the glad and the free 
That woke the loud anthem responsive to thee, 
When the daughters of Salem broke forth in the song. 
While Tabor and Hermon its echoes prolong? 

"And where are the mighty, who went forth in pride 
To the slaughter of kings, with their ark at their side ? 
They sleep, lonely stream, with the sands of thy shore. 
And the war-trumpet's blast shall awake them no more. 

"O Judah, a lone, scattered remnant remain. 
To sigh for the graves of their fathers in vain. 
And to turn toward thy land with a tear-brimming eye, 
And a prayer that the advent of Shiloh be nigh. 

133 . 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

"No beauty in Sharon, on Carmel no shade ; 
Our vineyards are wasted, our altars decayed ; 
And the heel of the heathen, insulting, has trod 
On the bosoms that bled for their country and God." 

Anonymous. 



Jewish Hymn in Babylon 

(From "Belshazzar.") 

(^ OD of thunder! from whose cloudy seat 
^^ The fiery winds of Desolation flow ; 
Father of vengeance, that with purple feet 

Like a full wine-press tread'st the world below; 
The embattled armies wait thy sign to slay, 
Nor springs the beast of havoc on his prey, 
Nor w^ithering Famine walks his blasted way, 

Till thou hast marked the guilty land for woe. 

God of the rainbow! at whose gracious sign 

The billows of the proud their rage suppress ; 
Father of mercies! at one word of thine 

An Eden blooms in the waste wilderness, 
And fountains sparkle in the arid sands. 
And timbrels ring in maidens' glancing hands. 
And marble cities crown the laughing lands, 
And pillared temples rise thy name to bless. 

O'er Judah's land thy thunders broke, O Lord ! 

The chariots rattled o'er her sunken gate. 
Her sons were w^asted by the Assyrian's sword, 

Even her foes wept to see her fallen state; 
And heaps her ivory palaces became. 
Her princes wore the captive's garb of shame, 
Her temples sank amid the smouldering flame. 

For thou didst ride the tempest cloud of fate. 

O'er Judah's land thy rainbow. Lord, shall beam, 
And the sad City lift her crownless head, 

. 134 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

And songs shall wake and dancing footsteps gleam 

In streets where broods the silence of the dead. 
The sun shall shine on Salem's gilded towers, 
On Carmel's side our maidens cull the flowers 
To deck at blushing eve their bridal bowers, 
And angel feet the glittering Sion tread. 

Thy vengeance gave us to the stranger's hand, 

And Abraham's children were led forth for slaves, 
With fettered steps we left our pleasant land, 

Envying our fathers in their peaceful graves; 
The stranger's bread with bitter tears we steep. 
And when our weary eyes should sink to sleep. 
In the mute midnight we steal forth to weep. 
Where the pale willows shade Euphrates' waves. 

The horn In sorrow shall bring forth in joy; 

Thy mercy, Lord, shall lead thy children home ; 
He that went forth a tender prattling boy 

Yet ere he die, to Salem's streets shall come ; 
And Canaan's vines for us their fruit shall bear,. 
And Hermon's bees their honeyed stores prepare. 
And we shall kneel again in thankful prayer. 

Where o'er the cherub-seated God full blazed the 
irradiate dome. 

Henry Hart Milman. 



Oh! Weep for Those 

/^H! weep for those that wept by Babel's stream, 
^^ Whose shrines are desolate, whose land a dream; 
Weep for the harp of Judah's broken shell ; 
Mourn — ^where their God hath dwelt, the godless 
dwell! 

And where shall Israel lave her bleeding feet? 
And when shall Zion's songs again seem sweet? 
And Judah's melody once more rejoice 
The hearts that leap'd before its heavenly voice? 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast, 
How shall ye flee away and be at rest? 
The wild-dove hath her nest, the fox his cave, 
Mankind their country — Israel but the grave! 

Lord Byron. 



Na-Ha-Moo 

"Comfort Ye — Comfort Ye, my people." — Isaiah, 
xl. I. 

DY Babel's streams, thy children wept. 

And mute, O Israel, was thy choir, 
While as thy weary exiles slept. 

And on the willow hung thy lyre, 
A seraph's voice, soft as the dew. 
Fell on their dreams with "Na-ha-moo." 

No song made glad that mournful voice. 

No ease was for that bruised breast, 
Till He who bade thee to rejoice 

Sent forth on Zion His behest — 
Firm as thy faith in Him was true, 
Like manna fell the "Na-ha-moo." 

The stranger hath usurped the seat, 

Where, throned in glory, blazed the fane. 

The hallowed walls, thy sacred feet, 
Still guard, O Zion, still remain, 

To mark the ruin and renew 

The memory of thy "Na-ha-moo." 

God's mercy shines a lingering beam, 

The pilgrim on his path to light, 
From Sinai's brow, from Jordan's stream, 

From offerings of the heart contrite — 
His promises our hopes imbue. 
With blessings of his "Na-ha-moo." 

J. C. Levy. 

136 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

By the Rivers of Babylon We Sat Down 

and Wept 

(Psalm cxxxvii.) 

"YJT/E sat down and wept by the waters 
'^ Of Babel, and thought of the day 
When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters, 

Made Salem's high places his prey, 
And ye, O her desolate daughters! 

Were scatter'd all weeping away. 

While sadly we gazed on the river 
Which roU'd on in freedom below. 

They demanded the song; but, oh, never 
That triumph the stranger shall know! 

May this right hand be wither'd for ever. 
Ere it string our high harp for the foe! 

On the willow that harp is suspended, 
O Salem ! its sound should be free ; 

And the hour when thy glories were ended 
But left me that token of thee; 

And ne'er shall its soft tones be blended 
With the voice of the spoiler by me ! 

Lord Byron. 



By BabeTs Streams 

(Paraphrase of Psalm 137) 

I 

Y Babel's streams we sat, we wept. 



B 



Rememb'ring Zion's fallen state: 
We hung the harp whose music slept 

On willows 'neath whose solemn shade 
We talked of Zion's glory. 

137 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

II 

The captor cruel mocked the sigh 

And bade us sing of Zion's songs. 
With breaking hearts we made reply 

"To Zion's land alone belongs 
The sounds of Zion's glory." 

Ill 

How can we from the harp-string wake 
In stranger's land the sacred lay? 

Each harp-string, aye, our hearts would break 
Before our fingers would obey, 

For lost is Zion's glory. 

IV 

O Salem! If thy sacred land 

Forgotten be, if false we prove 
May memory fail, — may palsied hand 

And dastard tongues refuse to move. 
If we forget thy glory. 

H. Pereira Mendes. 



The Jewish Captive 

(Psalm cxxxvii.) 

r\ H Zion ! if I cease for thee 
^^ My earliest vows to pay — 
If for thy sad and ruined walls 
I ever cease to pray — 
If I no more thy sacred courts 

With holy reverence prize. 
Or Zion-ward shall cease to turn 

My ever-longing eyes — 
Or if the splendor round me thrown 

Shall touch this Jewish heart, 
And make me cease to prize thy joy 

Above all other art, — 

138 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Oh, may this hand no more with skill 

E'er touch this sacred string, 
And may this tongue grow cold in death, 

Ere I shall cease to sing 
And pray for Zion's holy courts, 

Or dare to bow the knee 
To these poor, blind and helpless gods, 

Forgetful, Lord, of thee." 

Elizabeth Oakes (Prince) Smith. 



The Return From the Captivity 

A RISE! Sons of Israel, arise! 
'**■ The days of thy liberties dawn; 
The Lord hath relented his wrath, 
The night of thy slavery's gone. 

Let the hills in thy gladness rejoice, 
That freedom now smiles upon thee; 

'Till the ocean's loud echoless voice, 
Roars back to the valleys we're free. 

They roar, and the mountain replies: 

In your dwellings let joyfulness be ; 
Arise! Sons of Israel, arise! 

Raise the hymn of thanksgiving, — thou'rt free. 

Marion and Celia Moss, 



The Wild Gazelle 

HTHE wild gazelle on Judah's hills 
**• Exulting yet may bound. 
And drink from all the living rills 

That gush on holy ground ; 
Its airy step and glorious e^^e 
May glance in tameless transport by:- 

139 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

A step as fleet, an eye more bright, 

Hath Judah witness'd there, 
And o'er her scenes of lost delight 

Inhabitants more fair. 
The cedars wave on Lebanon, 
But Judah's statelier maids are gone! 

More blest each palm that shades those plains 

Than Israel's scatter'd race ; 
For, taking root, it there remains 

In solitary grace; 
It cannot quit its place of birth, 
It will not live in other earth. 

But we must wander witheringly, 

In other lands to die; 
And where our fathers' ashes be, 

Our own may never lie: 
Our temple hath not left a stone, 
And Mockery sits on Salem's throne. 

Lord Byron. 



Nehemiah to Artaxerxes 

(Nehemiah ii. 1-5.) 

''T'lS sorrow, O King! of the heart, 

* Not anguish of body or limb. 
That causes the hue from my cheek to depart, 
And mine eye to grow rayless and dim. 

'Tis the mem'ry of Salem afar. 

Of Salem the city of God, 
In darkness now wrapped like the moon and the star 

When the tempests of night are abroad. 

The walls of the city are razed. 

The gates of the city are burned ; 
And the temple of God, where my fathers have praised, 

To the ashes of ruin are turned. 

140 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

The palace of kings is consumed, 

Where the timbrels were wont to resound ; 

And the sepulchre domes, like the bones they entombed, 
Are mould'ring away in the ground. 

And the fugitive remnant that breathe 
In the land that their fellows have trod, 

Sit in sorrow and gloom ; for a shadow like death 
O'erhangs every wretched abode. 

I have wept, I have fasted, and prayed 

To the great and terrible God, 
For this city of mine that in ruin is laid, 

And my brethren who smart by His rod. 

And now I beseech thee, O King! 

If favor I find in thy sight, 
That I may revisit my home, where the wing 

Of destruction is spread like the night. 

And when I to Shushan return 

From rebuilding my forefathers' tomb. 
No more shall the heart of thy cup-bearer burn 

With those sorrows that melt and consume. 

William Knox. 



Belshazzar 

DELSHAZZAR is king! Belshazzar is Lord! 

And a thousand dark nobles all bend at his board ; 
Fruits glisten, flowers blossom, meats steam, and a flood 
Of wine that man loveth runs redder than blood; 
Wild dancers are there, and a riot of mirth. 
And the beauty that maddens the passions of earth; 
And the crowds all shout, till the vast roofs ring — 
"All praise to Belshazzar, Belshazzar the king!" 

141 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

"Bring forth," cries the monarch, "the vessels of gold, 
Which my father tore down from the temples of old; 
Bring forth !" and before him the vessels all shine, 
And he bows unto Baal, and he drinks the dark wine, 
While the trumpets bray and the cymbals ring, — 
"Praise, praise to Belshazzar, Belshazzar the king!" 

Now what Cometh — look, look! — without menace or 

call? 
Who writes with the lightning's bright hand on the 

wall? 
What pierceth the king like the point of a dart? 
What drives the bold blood from his cheek to his 

heart? 
"Chaldeans! Magicians! the letters expound!" 
They are read, — and Belshazzar is dead on the ground! 
Hark! — The Persian is come on a conqueror's wing; 
And a Mede's on the throne of Belshazzar the king. 

Bryan Waller Proctor. 
(Barry Cornwall). 



Daniel 

IMPERIAL Persia bowed to his wise sway — 
A hundred provinces his daily care; 

A queenly city with its gardens fair 
Smiled round him — but his heart was far away. 
Forsaking pomp and power "three times a day." 

For chamber lone, he seeks his solace there ; 

Through windows opening westward floats his prayer 
Towards the dear distance where Jerusalem lay. 
So let me morn, noon, evening, steal aside 

And shutting my heart's door to earth's vain pleasure 
• And manifold solicitudes, find leisure 
The windows of my soul to open wide 

Towards that blest city and that heavenly treasure 
Which past these visible horizons hide. 

Richard Wilton. 

142 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 



Vision of Belshazzar 

'T'HE King was on his throne, 

The Satraps throng'd the hall; 
A thousand bright lamps shone 

O'er that high festival. 
A thousand cups of gold, 

In Judah deem'd divine — 
Jehovah's vessels hold 

The godless Heathen's vv^ine. 

In that same hour and hall 

The fingers of a hand 
Came forth against the w^all. 

And wrote as if on sand : 
The fingers of a man; — 

A solitary hand 
Along the letters ran, 

And traced them like a wand. 

The monarch saw, and shook, 

And bade no more rejoice; 
All bloodless wax'd his look, 

And tremulous his voice. 
"Let the men of lore appear, 

The wisest of the earth, 
And expound the words of fear, 

Which mar our royal mirth." 

Chaldea's seers are good, 

But here they have no skill ; 
And the unknown letters stood 

Untold and awful still. 
And Babel's men of age 

Are wise and deep in lore ; 
But now they were not sage ; 

They saw — but knew no more. 

143 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

A captive in the land, 

A stranger and a youth, 
He heard the king's command. 

He saw that writing's truth. 
The lamps around were bright, 

The prophecy in view; 
He read it on that night — 

The morrow proved it true ! 

"Belshazzar's grave is made, 

His kingdom pass'd away, 
He, in the balance weigh'd. 

Is light and worthless clay; 
The shroud his robe of state. 

His canopy the stone; 
The Mede is at his gate! 

The Persian on his throne!" 

Lord Byron. 



Babylon 

T^HOU glory of a thousand kings, 
''■ Proud daughter of the East! 
That dwellest as on sea-birds' wings, 

Upon Euphrates' breast; 
As lofty as thy pride of old. 

So deep shall be thy doom ; 
Thy wealth is fled, thy days are told, 

Awake! thine end is come! 

A sound of war is in the lands! 

A sword is on thy host ! 
Thy princes and their mighty bands — 

The Lord shall mock their boast! 
His Hand has rein'd the rushing steed. 

And quell'd the rage of war; 
Shall stay the flying lance's speed 

And burn the whirling car. 

144 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Set ye the standard In the lands; 

The Lord of Hosts hath said, 
Bid trumpets rouse the distant bands 

Of Persia and the Mede; 
The bucklers bring, make bright the dart, 

I lead thee forth to war. 
To burst the gates of brass apart 

And break the iron bar! 

The spoiler's hand is come upon 

Thy valiant men of might, 
Their lion hearts, proud Babylon, 

Have failed thee in the fight; 
Thy cities are all desolate. 

Thy lofty gates shall fall, 
The hand that wrought Gomorrah's fate 

Shall crush thy mighty wall. 

The shepherd shall not fold his flocks 

Upon the desert plain, 
But, lurking in thy cavern'd rocks, 

The forest beast shall reign. 
Fair Babylon, Lost Babylon! 

Sit in the dust and mourn, 
Hurled headlong from thy lofty throne — 

Forgotten and forlorn! 

Anonymous. 



Herod^s Lament for Mariamne 

/^H, Mariamne! now for thee, 

^^ The heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding ; 

Revenge is lost in agony, 

And w^ild remorse to rage succeeding. 
Oh! Mariamne! where art thou? 

Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading: 
Ah! couldst thou — thou wouldst pardon now, 

Though Heaven were to my prayer unheeding. 

145 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And is she dead, — and did they dare 

Obey my frenzy's jealous raving? 
My wrath but doom'd my own despair: 

The sword that smote her o'er me waving. 
But thou art cold, my murder'd love! 

And this dark heart is vainly craving 
For her who soars alone above, 

And leaves my soul unworthy saving. 

She's gone, who shar'd my diadem ; 

She sunk, with her my joys entombing; 
I swept that flower from Judah's stem, 

Whose leaves for me alone were blooming; 
And mine's the guilt, and mine the hell. 

This bosom's desolation dooming; 
And I have earn'd those tortures well, 

Which unconsumed are still consuming! 

Lord Byron. 



The Ark of the Covenant 

'T'HERE is a legend full of joy and pain, 
•'' An old tradition told of former years, 
When Israel built the Temple once again 
And stayed his tears. 

'Twas in the chamber where the Wood Pile lay, 
The logs wherewith the altar's flame was fed; 

There hope recalled the Light of vanished day, 
The Light long fled. 

A priest moved slowly o'er the marble floor, 
Sorting the fuel in the chamber stored ; 

Frail was his form ; — he ministered no more 
Before the Lord. 

146 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Wrapt In still thought, with sad and mournful mien, 
Pyking his axe with oft a troubled sigh, 

He dreamed of glory which the House had seen 
In days gone by; 

Mused of the time when in the Holy Place 
God's Presence dwelt between the Cherubim, 

And of the day He turned away His face, 
And light grew dim; 

When the Shechinah from that erring throng, 
Alas, withdrew, yet tarried In the track, 

As one who llngereth on the threshold long 
And looketh back; 

Then step by step In that reluctant flight 
Approached the shadow of the city wall. 

And lingered yet upon the mountain height 
For hoped recall. 

The Temple standing, pride of Israel's race. 
Hath resting there no sacred Ark of Gold; 

God's Glory filleth not the Holy Place 
As once of old. 

Surely the glory of the House is o'er; 

Gone is the Presence, silent is the Voice; — 
They who remember that which is no more. 

Can they rejoice? 

To him, so musing, sudden rapture came; 

The axe fell from his trembling hand's control; 
A fire leapt upward, and a burning flame 

Woke in his soul. 

His eyes had seen ; his soul spoke ; he had gazed 

Upon one stone of that smooth marble plain : — 

Lo! from its place it surely had been raised, 
And set again. 

147 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Into his heart there flashed prophetic light ; 

With sudden force the secret was revealed ; 
What but one treasure, sacred in his sight, 

Lay there concealed? 

As one of Heaven bid who dare not wait, 

With step grown firm as with the strength of youth, 

He hastened to his comrade to relate 
The wondrous truth. 

With hand uplifted, and a light sublime 

In eyes that full of some new wonder shone. 

He seemed a holy seer of olden time 
To look upon. 

Yet from his parted lips no message came; 

In silence reached he his immortal goal; 
And from its dwelling in the earthly frame 

Went forth his soul. 

Soon o'er the house flew, murmuring, strange reports. 
And men and women trembled at the sound. 

And priests came swiftly from the sacred courts, 
And thronged around. 

And all these came from all their paths away. 
In hurried gathering which none gainsaid. 

And stood in utter silence where he lay. 
The priestly dead. 

Lo! in the hush the spirit, as It passed 

Beyond the still form and the peaceful brow, 

Seemed to speak audibly: "O Lord, at last! 
I see Thee now. 

"Mine eyes have seen this day my life's fair dream, 
In this my death have seen that dream fulfilled — 

The longing of my heart, the wish supreme 
That grief Instilled. 

148 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

"I said, God's Ark is captive far away, 

So wept I, Ichabod, for glory fled. 
And mourned because the brightness of the day 

Was quenched and dead. 

*'Yet, verily, if in a far-off land 

The Ark of God in exile dwelleth still, 

Yea, even so 'tis with the pure of hand 
Who do His will. 

"Know then, ye priests and Levites, Israel all, 
Hid in its place the Ark of God doth lie. 

His presence hath not gone beyond recall, 
But bideth nigh. 

"Haste, brethren, let the gates asunder burst; 

Regain the Ark, the Covenant hold fast ; 
And by the glorious Second House, the First 

Shall be surpassed! 

"Behold, thou comest as the dawn of day! 

Shechinah! changeless, to illume the night! 
O Thou, Who art a lamp upon the way, 

Who art the light!" 

So sang his soul, with life's full radiance crowned ; 

So dawned again the shining of God's face; 
For each heart knew the Ark could yet be found 

Within its place. 

Nina Davis. 



Before the Ark 

"W/HEN Solomon, great King of Israel, 
^^ Builded the Temple of old, 
He fashioned the "Ark of the Cov'nant" 
Within and without of gold. 

149 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

He moulded two Cherubim splendid 
(At God, the Eternal's command) 

Whose pinions the Holy of Holies 
Like a luminous symbol spanned. 

The wings of these wonderful angels 

He welded together where 
The Lord from His high seat of Mercy 

Re-echoed the voice divine. 

And thus when the people lay prostrate 

Before the shimmering shrine, 
From betwixt the horns of the Altar 

Re-echoed the voice divine. 

We, also, dear children of Israel, 

Are bending before the Ark, 
And our spirits' gold wings are shining 

Bright in the mystical dark. 

As they touch, we whisper devoutly 

The great ineffable name, 
And His voice, like music celestial. 

Chimes from the Ner Tainid's * flame. 

The words we can clearly distinguish — 
Their meaning is solemn and grand; 

"O, Children of Israel, remember! 
Know ye before Whom you stand!'* 

George Alexander Kohut. 



• The "Perpetual Lamp," burning at the Altar. 



150 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 



Menorah 

Vf/E'VE read in legends of the books of old 
^^ How deft Bezalel, wisest in his trade, 
At the command of veiled Moses made 
The seven-branched candlestick of beaten gold — 
The base, the shaft, the cups, the knobs, the flowers, 
Like almond blossoms — and the lamps were seven. 

We know at least that on the templed rock 

Of Zion hill, with earth's revolving hours 

Under the changing centuries of heaven, 

It stood upon the solemn altar block. 

By every Gentile who had heard abhorred — 

The holy light of Israel of the Lord ; 

Until that Titus and the legions came 

And battered the walls with catapult and fire, 

And bore the priest and candlestick away, 

And, as memorial of fulfilled desire. 

Bade carve upon the arch that bears his name 

The stone procession ye may see today 

Beyond the Forum on the Sacred Way, 

Lifting the golden candlestick of fame. 

The city fell, the temple was a heap; 

And little children, who had else grown strong 

And in their manhood venged the Roman wrong. 

Strewed step and chamber, in eternal sleep. 

But the great vision of the sevenfold flames 

Outlasted the cups wherein at first it sprung. 

The Greeks might teach the arts, the Romans law; 

The heathen hordes might shout for bread and games; 

Still Israel, exalted in the realms of awe. 

Guarded the Light in many an alien air. 

Along the borders of the midland sea 

In hostile cities, spending praise and prayer 

And pondering on the larger things that be — 

Down through the ages, when the Cross uprose 

151 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Among the northern Gentiles to oppose: 
Then huddled in the ghettos, barred at night, 
In lands of unknown trees, and fiercer snows, 
They watched for evermore the Light, the Light. 

The main seas opened to the west. The Nations 

Covered new continents with generations 

That had their work to do, their thought to say; 

And Israel's hosts from bloody towns afar 

In the dominions of the ermined Czar, 

Seared with the iron, scarred with many a stroke, 

Crowded the hollow ships but yesterday. 

And came to us who are to-morrow's folk, 

And the pure Light, however some might doubt 

Who mocked their dirt and rags, had not gone out. 

The holy Light of Israel hath unfurled 

Its tongues of mystic flame around the world. 

Empires and Kings and Parliaments have passed; 

Rivers and mountain chains from age to age 

Become new boundaries for man's politics. 

The navies run new ensigns up the mast. 

The temples try new creeds, new equipage; 

The schools new sciences beyond the six. 

And through the lands where many a song hath rung 

The people speak no more their fathers' tongue. 

Yet in the shifting energies of man 

The Light of Israel remains her Light. 

And gathered to a splendid caravan 

From the four corners of the day and night, 

The chosen people — so the prophets hold — 

Shall yet return unto the homes of old 

Under the hills of Judah. Be It so. 

Only the stars and moon and sun can show 

A permanence of light to hers akin. 

What is that Light? Who is there that shall tell 
The purport of the tribe of Israel? — 

152 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

In the wild welter of races on that earth 
Which spins in space where thousand others spin — 
The casual offspring of the Cosmic Mirth 
Perhaps — what is there any man can win, 
Of any nation ? Ultimates aside, 
Men have their aims, and Israel her pride, 
She stands among the rest, austere, aloof. 
Still the peculiar people, armed in proof 
Of Selfhood, whilst the others merge or die. 
She stands among the rest and answers: "I, 
Above ye all, must ever gauge success 
By ideal types, and know the more and less 
Of things as being in the end defined. 
For this our human life by righteousness; 
And if I base this in Eternal Mind — 
Our fathers' God in victory or distress — 
I cannot argue for my hardihood. 
Save that the thought is in my flesh and blood, 
And made me what I w^as in olden time, 
And keeps me what I am today in every clime." 

WilCiam Ellery Leonard. 



The Menorah 

r70R ages imprisoned in shadow, 

I had longed for a glimpse of the light; 
And so when the sun in his glory, 

Bewildered and dazzled my sight, 
I acclaimed him my God and desired 

To pour forth my soul to this One, 
To bow down midst worshiping strangers. 

And pray, as they prayed, to the Sun. 

I abandoned my temple and altars. 

Denied my Menorah its flame, 
For is there not one Sun in Heaven 

That shines upon all men the same? 

153 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

On every tongue but one language, 

In every heart but one prayer? 
Oh, all the world is my temple, 

I'm one of the worshipers there! 

But evening came with the twilight, 

And lo! Now my Sun-God was gone; 
And far the sun-worshipers scattered 

When the last glow of light was done. 
Then all of them lit their own candles. 

Each followed a star of his own, 
And there in his own light's glimmer 

He worshiped a God of his own ! 

And so I relit my Menorah, 

By its light my own God I extol ; 
And by the dim flaming Menorah 

I seek to discover my soul. 
Its oil is a life-giving fountain. 

Its wick as our union appears. 
And I see by its flarne ascending 

The course of our future years! 

Harry Wolfsohn. 
(Translated by H. B. Ehrmann.) 



The Holy Flame ^^ Menorah^' 

TPHOU sacred flame, so mellow and subdued, 
•^ Burning with tremulous, flickering beam 
In the holy place, before the all Supreme, 
As though the very fire were all imbued 

With that almighty prophet's humble soul. 
With Moses' sense of deep humility. 

Whose height of feeling knew no humble goal. 
Whose aims bore naught of man's futility. 

154 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Thou, holy fire, whose light shall ever guide 

The steps of wandering Israel, to the shrine 

Of Him who was, who is, and ne'er will cease to be ; 

Whose luminous fire gleams down the tide 

Of centuries, both of greatness and of woe, 

When Israel's greatness bore a trace divine, 

When Israel's fortune sank, far, far below 

Even the lot of those poor Nubian slaves. 

Who served our fathers in the promised land; 

To thee, oh ancient light! whose very name 

Is a memorial of God's earliest word, 

We look to thee, and hail the conquering hand 

Of wisdom's day, o'er spiritual night. 

And breathe with God : "Let there be Light." 

George Jay Holland. 

The Prayer of the High Priest 

I GO Years B. C. E. 

T^HE High Priest at the altar lingering stood — 

The service o'er. 
The worshippers with faces kind and good. 
Passed from the door. 

The synagogue was empty; only one — 

A Child — remained ; 
With eager eyes as shining as the Sun 

He stood as chained. 

"Kohen Gadol," said he, "When I grow 

To man's estate, 
I hope that I shall know the things you know 

And be as great. 

"And Oh, I wish such glorious robes to wear 

As these of yours. 
Dear Master, intercede for me in prayer, 

For that secures 

155 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

"What e'er you ask. And here — behold I bring 
These beauteous flowers; 

Upon the brink of Kedron they did cling 
These many hours. 

"Accept them. With the other blossoms — see? — 

Are here, so fair, 
The Valley Lilies; these I give to thee. 

Now make thy prayer." 

On that boy's head the High Priest — smiling — laid 

A kindly hand. 
He said: "My child, these lilies here have prayed; 

They understand 

"As well as I the mysteries of God. 

I ask for you 
Such raiment as the flowers of the sod 

When fresh with dew. 

"Abide thou in thine innocence, for lo! 

The Great High Priest 
May even less of God — Jehovah — know 

.Than thou, the Least." 

Marie Harrold Garrison. 



The High Priest to Alexander 

"Derrame en todo el orbe de la tierra 
Las armas, el furor, y nueva guerra." 

La Araucana, Canto xvi. 

/^ O forth ! thou man of force ! 
^^ The world is all thine own ; 
Before thy dreadful course 

Shall totter every throne. 
Let India's jewels glow 

Upon thy diadem: 
Go, forth to cofiquest go, 

But spare Jerusalem. 

156 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

For the God of gods, which liveth 

Through all eternity, 
'Tis He alone which giveth 

And taketh victor)^: 
'TIs He the bow that blasteth. 

And breaketh the proud one's quiver; 
And the Lord of armies resteth 

In His Holy of Holies for ever! 

For God Is Salem's spear, 

And God Is Salem's sword ; 
What mortal man shall dare 

To combat with the Lord? 
Every knee shall bow 

Before His awful sight; 
Every thought sink low 

Before the Lord of might. 
For the God of gods, which liveth 

Through all eternity, 
'TIs He alone which giveth 

And taketh victory: 
'TIs He the bow that blazeth, 

And breaketh the proud one's quiver; 
And the Lord of armies resteth 

In His Holy of Holies for ever! 

Alfred Tennyson. 



On the Day of the Destruction of Jerusalem 

by Titus 

C* ROM the last hill that looks on the once holy 

dome, 
I beheld thee, O Slon, when render'd to Rome ; 
'Twas thy last sun went down, and the flames of thy 

fall 
Flash'd back on the last glance I gave to thy wall. 

157 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

I look'd for thy temple, I look'd for my home, 
And forgot for a moment my bondage to come ; 
I beheld but the death-fire that fed on thy fane, 
And the fast-fetter'd hands that made vengeance in 
vain. 

On many an eve, the high spot whence I gazed 
Had reflected the last beam of day as It blazed; 
While I stood on the height and beheld the decline 
Of the rays from the mountains that shone on thy 
shrine. 

And now on the mountain I stood on that day, 
But I mark'd not the twilight beam melting away! 
Oh ! would that the lightning had glared In .Its stead, 
And the thunderbolt burst on the conqueror's head I 

But the gods of the Pagan shall never profane 
The shrine where Jehovah disdain'd not to reign; 
And scatter'd and scorn'd as thy people may be. 
Our worship, O Father! is only for Thee. 

Lord Byron. 



At Samaria 

VjT/E climbed the hill where from Samaria's crown 
" In marble majesty once looked away 
Toward Hermon^ white beneath the Syrian day; 

And lo, no vestige of the old renown. 

Save a long colonnade bescarred and brown. 
Remained to tell of Herod's regal sway, 
The gold, the gauds, the imperial display. 

He heaped on Judah's erewhile princely town. 

Ruin was riotous ; decay was king ; 

An olive -root engript the topmost stone 

As tho it clutched and crusht the thing called fame ; 

158 



BIBLICAL AND POST-BIBLICAL 

Seemed as a fragile wind-flower petal blown 
Into the void, the past's vain glorying, 
And Herod but the shadow of a name! 

Clinton Scollard. 

The Temple 

(^ O forth, O people, 

^^ Sacred to thought, to labour and to sorrow, 

And through the centuries pursue thy way. 

God of Infinity, He is thy God, 

And measureless alike 'mid alien fanes, 

Along the sea and lands that thou shalt tread, 

Pilgrim of endless years, thy path shall be. 

The road is dark, is long and full of pain; 

Beside thee still shall go, at God's behest, 

Like to the fiery column, quenchless Hope. 

As winnowed grain is flung into the air, 

So, 'midst all peoples God shall scatter thee, 

And thou shalt bear, as well as thine own griefs, 

The griefs and burdens of all other races. 

Peoples shall rise, shall shine, shall pass away. 

But thou, sacred to life, beside the graves 

Of all shall pass immortal, vaster far than time 

Or than this earth, no tomb can hold 

Thy thoughts immeasurable. 

Sorrowful and grand, 
Thou to the rush confused of years to come, 
And in the wreck of peoples and of empires. 
Thou in all ages, living, speaking witness, 
Shalt say to all — "I am." And to the past 
The future thou shalt bind, and race to race, 
People to people, and the scattered limbs 
Of Adam drawing into thine own self, 
In thee, new Adam, one mankind shall grow 
Like unto God, and holy on the earth. 
Thou the reviving universe shalt fill 
With truth and peace. 

David Levi. 

159 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Ode to the Sacred Lamps 

r\ FUGITIVES from- black Oppression's bread, 
^^ Scourged of your God, through flames and 
furies led 
To Babel's streams, to Persia's milder shore, 

To Afric's marge, and isles of pensive Greece; — 
'Twas not with magic, not with priestly lore, 
But with high wisdom, folded in a fleece. 
You spread, broadcast, the seeds of Hebrew power! 
Oppression's head was bruised in Israel's bower. 
By you, who steeped your souls' high-centered pride 

In day dreams of old Zion's new built State; 
With cunning hands, you raised unto your bride, 
Temples and schools, defying death and fate; 
In Yavneh and in Pumbadissa, Egypt, Spain and 

Rome, — 
You toasted deep the Torah's health and dreamed of 
your "Old Home." 

The Western surge keeps ringing in mine ears, 
Music too sweet, to stir my breast with fears. 
Out there, fine vistas shaping life, I view. 

To mart and farm, and mansions by the sea, 
On soils superb, divine as Hermon's dew; — 
Visions ecstatic, splendours new to me. 
Wind round my heart, a fragrant benison: — 
"Israel ne'er shall orphaned be again" ; 

Her Talmud schools, her Temples' gilded shrines, 

Imaged by men of high magnetic zeal, 
Floating the Stars and Stripes' triumphant signs, 
Shall build a race strong for the Commonweal ; 
Apt for affairs, keen in debate; with scholar strata- 
gem, 
Enkindled by the sacred lamps of Old Jerusalem. 

M. L. R. Breslar. 



1 60 



II 

TALMUDICAL PERIOD 



The Sea of the Talmud 

'T'HE moon Is up, the stars shine bright, 
■*• The milky way glows soft and white. 
We've spread our sails to catch the breeze 
That frets the vast rabbinic seas. 



We've spread our sails to roam amain 
That profits neither gold nor gain, 
Whose shores are stretched along a land, 
Unmapped by man's designing hand. 

Beneath no lowering, storm-mad skies 
We start on our strange enterprise — 
Set outward bound, where signals gleam 
Beyond the shadows of our dream, 

To realms no feet of mortal man 
Have trodden on or ever can. 
And port at quays no ship-bound crew 
Has sighted In the cosmic blue. 

The ports there made are set afar 
Like distant morn or evening star, 
And golden as the halls of Ind 
Where hush the sobbings of the wind. 

Who rides this main, he travels wide 
And sees the flood and ebbing tide 
Run up and down a fabled shore 
Outlined complete In cryptic lore. 

Our rigging firm, our compass true 
And manned with brave and seasoned crew 
We sail at ease this unplumbed sea 
Of knowledge and of mystery. 

163 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Enroute we pass odd crafts and barks 
Whose pennants fly the signal marks 
Of playful whims that, fancy free, 
Glide o'er this vast rabbinic sea. 

Then undulating like to grain 
We rock, as out we head again 
Our graceful sloop — or east or west — 
It matters not which way the quest. 

There flows in this rabbinic sea 
The streams whose springs are poetry; 
And rivulets from fancy's height 
Drop down to add their welcome mite. 

And islands, where the palm trees dim 
The visions of the Anakim ; 
And animals as high as these 
Play quoits with fishes in the seas. 

Along this course there's ever found 
Elijah on his daily round, 
Who unafraid of good or ill, 
Strives but to do another's will. 

What pageantry of kings we pass 
Resplendent as the royal glass 
The sages quaff, when at their feast, 
The banquet hall lights up the east. 

And all the winds that make the round 
Of heaven bring their freighted sound 
From halls where grey-haired sages sit 
And questions of their Torah knit. 

Yet mists at times befog the way 
Where fretful w^hite caps madly play; 
Then midst the storm the seraphim 
Becalm the waves by praising Him. 

164 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

No other sea full-ebbed as this, 
Bequeathed its sailors so much bliss, 
For old as are its thundering shores, 
Were ne'er bestrewn with spoils of wars. 

No craft that ever dents their waves 
Discharged its freight in watery graves; 
For he who sails this unique sea 
Returns with his own argosy. 

The moon is up. The stars shine bright; 
This mystic sea is swathed in light. 
And from its depths droll voices lure 
The land beset forth on a tour. 

Far from the teeming ports and quays, 
Where men and women fret their da5-s, 
No cruise as this makes sport of time, 
Or breed or border, land or clime. 

And in its wake a thousand ships 
In gathering darkness evening dips. 
Yet happy is each crew, and free. 
That sails this vast rabbinic sea. 

Joseph Leiser. 



The Talmud 

A NCIENT pages of the Talmud, 
'**' Legends, tales that there I view, 
In my mournful life and dreary 
Oftentimes I turn to you. 

When at night amid the darkness 
On mine eyes sleep will not rest, 

And I sit alone, and wretched. 
With my head upon my breast, 

165 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

In those hours, as a star shines 

In the azure summer night, 
Memories amid my sadness 

Then begin to glimmer bright. 

I recall my love, my childhood ; 

Those sweet hours come back again 
When I still was free from sorrow, 

Free from anger, free from pain. 

I recall those times, long vanished, 

When I quaffed, without alloy, 
Life's first, best and sweetest chalice. 

Freedom, mirthfulness and joy. 

Those old years so sweet and precious 

Pass again before mine eyes. 
And the pages of the Talmud 

In my memory arise. 

Oh! the precious ancient pages! 

All the lights and stars I see 
Burning, shining in those pages; 

They can ne'er extinguished be! 

Myriad streams and myriad rivers 
Have flowed o'er them in the past; 

Sand has covered them and hid them, 
Storms have rent them — still they last. 

Yes, the ancient, ancient pages 

Still survive and perish not. 
Although yellowed, torn and blackened. 

Here a hole and there a spot. 

What of that? Indeed it truly 

Is a graveyard, old and hoar. 

Where within the tomb lies buried 

All that we shall see no more. 

S. Frug. 
(Translated by Alice Stone Blackwell.) 

i66 



H 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

Hill el and His Guest 

A Talmudic Legend 

Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not 
what a day may bring forth. — Proverbs xxvil. i. 

ILLEL, the gentle, the beloved sage, 
Expounded day by day the sacred page 
To his disciple In the house of learning; 
And day by day, when home at eve returning, 
They lingered, clust'rlng round him loth to part 
From him whose gentle rule won every heart. 
But evermore, when they were wont to plead 
For longer converse, forth he went with speed, 
Saying each day; ''I go — the hour Is late — 
To tend the guest who doth my coming wait." 
Until at last they said: "The Rabbi jests 
When telling us thus dally of his guests 
That wait for him." The Rabbi paused awhile, 
And then made answer; "Think you I beguile 
You with an Idle tale? Not so, forsooth! 
I have a guest, whom I must tend In truth. 
Is not the soul of man Indeed a guest, 
Who In this body deigns a while to rest, 
And dwells with me all peacefully to-day; 
To-morrow — may it not have fled away?" 

Alice Lucas. 



Akiba 

r\ HEART, who art a fable, new and true; 
^^ O soul, a legend strange and sweet as joy; 
Lover, whose love has built, not razed a Troy; 
Akiba, whom heaven and angels taught to woo. 

Lover, and lawyer, all Israel's sceptred mind. 
Who luminous mists hast orbed into a sun 
Of Oral Law, and logic's praises won; 

A shepherd's crook you left, a wand to find, 

167 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Our blameless Lancelot of lists of lore, 

Who made Romance a theme for cherubim ; 
And love, God's Song of Songs, His heavenly 
hymn ; 

And law, a mine where mercy digs for ore. 

God's patriot, who heaven with life hast sought, 
And Holylands in Holyland hast known ; 
Thou art a part of heaven, thou hast shown, 

Thou art a part of "Torah" thou hast taught. 

What wonder you have traversed Paradise, 

It was your gentle spirit's element; 

What wealth to heaven, what penury hell, you 
sent ; 
Courage and wisdom hailed you brave and wise. 

And virtue named you saint, and greatness, great; 

Patriotism, patriot; and knowledge, sage. 

And love, a lover; your heart, its golden page. 
And holiness rejoiced to own you, mate. 

What, though the foe your frame with fires shod ? 
What, though he drained the wine-vats of your 

veins? 
He only precious made like gems, your pains; 
Aye, kissed by God, your feet on crowns have trod. 

Alter Abelson. 



Sunshine After Storm 

A Tale from the Tahnud 

T^HE rabbi viewed on Zion's hill 
A fox the hoh^ ruins treading, 
Expanding griefs their bosoms fill. 

Who suppliant hands to heaven are spreading. 

1 68 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

With dancing eyes and ringing laugh, 

Akiba marks the fox descending; 
Exulting, waves aloft his staff; 

His ill-timed mirth his friends offending. 

How canst thou smile? See God's own house, 

His holy place wild beasts infesting. 
Such would indignant pity rouse, 

If grace be still within thee resting. 

Why weep? quoth he, when near fulfilled: 
Her doom of trouble we're beholding. 

Join you with what another skilled 
In heavenly purpose, is unfolding. 

Comes next, the later, happier seer 

Who Salem's glory sees in vision, 
Of men and dames whose hundredth year 

Abounds in peace and rich provision. 

Jeshurun toils through grief to joy. 

Whom God would choose, He first must chasten, 
Let Israel faith and hope employ 

His higher destiny to hasten. 

William Dearness. 



Who Serves Best 

TN stern debate, all through the night they strove — 

The sages of the Talmud, to record 
What man deserved the favor of the Lord. 
The ancient Rabbi Judah, he who throve 
On fasting and on prayer, spake of one 
Who lavished wealth, as worthy. "Nay," quoth Saul, 
The scribe and scholar, looming gaunt and tall, 
"None but the wise is fit to look upon !" 

169 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

"Not so," exclaimed the zealot Zadok. "Place 
Him first who best observes the Law!" Lo, then was 

heard 
A child's sweet voice which thrilled the men who 

erred : — 
"To him alone is vouchsafed God's good grace 
Who renders loving service to his kind !" — ■ 
And ere they grasped the vision, it declined. 

George Alexander Kohut. 



Be Not Like Servants Basely Bred 

A NTIGONUS of Socho said: 
^^ Be not like servants basely bred, 
Who to their master minister 
In hope of gift he may confer. 
But be you like those servants still, 
Who strive to do their master's will 
Without a thought of guerdon given, 
And be on you the fear of Heaven. 

And this did Rabbi Tarphon say: 
The work is great and short the day, 
Sluggish the labourers, their Lord 
Urgent, but mighty the reward. 
He also said : 'Tis not on thee 
Incumbent, that thou shouldest end 
The work, but neither art thou free 
To cease from it. If thou dost spend 
Much time in studying the divine 
Torah, much guerdon shall be thine, 
For faithful thine employer is 
To pay thee for thy labour's sum. 
And know thou that the righteous is 
Rewarded in the time to come. 

And Rabbi Jacob said of old : 

Do thou this world of ours behold 

170 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

As though a vestibule it were 
Into the world to come. Prepare 
Thyself the Vestibule within, 
That thou the hall may'st enter in. 
And further thus his saying reads: 
One hour's repentance and good deeds 
In this world better is than all 
The world to come, but yet withal 
In yonder world one hour of bliss 
Is better than all life in this. 

Alice Lucas. 



The Commandment of Forgetfulness 

OABBI BEN ZADOK, o'er the sacred law 

''■^ Bending with reverent joy, with sacred awe 

Read the commandment: ''When thy harvest yields 

Its fruit and thou when reaping in the fields. 

Dost there forget a sheaf of golden grain. 

Fetch it not in to thee ! It shall remain — 

The poor, the stranger and the w^idow's store 

And the Lord God shall bless thee evermore." 

Rabbi ben Zadok closed the well-loved book, 

And, gazing upward with a troubled look, 

He said: "With joy do I obey, O Lord, 

Each best and precept of Thy holy word, 

For which Thy name at morn and eve I bless. 

But this commandment of forgetfulness 

I have not yet performed as Thou hast willed 

Since to remember leaves unfilled." 

So mused the Rabbi. But when autumn came. 

And waves of corn glow^ed 'neath the sunset's flame, 

It chanced at evening, that, his labors o'er, 

He stood and gazed upon his garnered store, 

And suddenly to him his little son 

Came .saying : "Father, see w^hat thou hast done ! 

171 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Three sheaves in yonder field I have espied 
Forgotten!" **Oh!" the pious rabbi cried, 
''Blessed art Thou, O Lord, whose gracious w^Ill 
Enables me Thy bidding to fulfil, 
Even through some oversight !" And with the day 
Unto the house of God he took his way. 
And offered of his flocks and herds the best. 
For joy to have obeyed the Lord's behest. 

Thus runs the Talmud tale! O God, may we 
Thus evermore rejoice In serving Thee. 

Alice Lucas. 



Who Are the Wise? 

From Ethics of the Fathers 

HTHEY who have governed with a self control ' 
"■" Each wild and baneful passion of the soul — 
Curbed the strong Impulse of all fierce desires, 
But kept alive affection's purer fires; 
Those who have passed the labyrinth of life 
Without one hour of weakness or of strife; 
Prepared each change of future to endure, 
Humble tho' rich, and dignified tho' poor — 
Skilled in the latest movements of the heart — 
Learned In that lore which nature can Impart; 
Teaching that sweet philosophy aloud 
Which sees the silver lining of the cloud ; 
Looking for good In all beneath the skies — 
Those only can be numbered with the wise. 

Anonymous. 



What Rabbi Jehosha Said 

D ABBI JEHOSHA used to say 
'''^ That God made angels every day, 
Perfect as Michael and the rest 
First brooded In creation's nest, 

172 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

Whose only office was to cry 
Hosanna! once and then to die; 
Or rather, with Life's essence blent, 
To be led home from banishment. 

Rabbi Jehosha had the skill 

To know that Heaven is in God's will; 

And doing that, though for a space 

One heart-beat long, may win a grace 

As full of grandeur and of glow 

As Princes of the Chariot know. 

'T were glorious, no doubt, to be 

One of the strong-winged Hierarchy, 

To burn with Seraphs, or to shine 

With Cherubs, deathlessly divine; 

Yet I, perhaps, poor earthly clod, 

Could I forget myself in God, 

Could I but find my nature's clue 

Simply as birds and blossoms do, 

And but for one rapt moment know 

'T is Heaven must come, not we must go; 

Should win my place as near the throne 

As the pearl-angel of its zone. 

And God would listen mid the throng 

For my one breath of perfect song. 

That, in its simple human way. 

Said all the Host of Heaven could say. 

James Russell Lowell. 



Brotherly Love 

'T'HE Rabbi Judah, so the scribes relate, 
"*■ Sat with his brethren once in a warm debate 
About those things which each considered best 
To bring to earth immunity and rest. 
Then said the one requested to begin: 
"Rest comes from wealth, if there be peace within.' 

173 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The second said : "It springs from honest fame, 
And having all men magnify your name." 
The third said: "Rest is being truly great, 
Coupled with power to rule some mighty state." 
The fourth said : "Such a rest as w^e presage 
Reach men in only the extremest age, 
When wealth and power and fame unite to go 
To children — and unto their children flow." 

The fifth said: "All these various things are vain; 
Rest comes to those who all the law maintain." 
Then said the Rabbi Judah, grave and old. 
The tallest of the group with him enrolled: 
"You all speak wisely, but no rest is deep 
To him who the traditions fails to keep." 

Now spoke a fairhaired boy up from the grass — 
A boy of twelve, who heard these words repass. 
And dropped the lilies from his slender hands; 
"Nay, father; none among you understands. 
True rest he only finds who evermore 
Looks not behind, but to the things before; 
Who, scorning fame and power and home and pelf, 
Loveth his brother as he loves himself." 

Attributed to Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 



God's Messengers 

Rabbon Gamaliel said: "Make His will thy will, . . . 
subvert thy will to His will." — Aboth 2, 4 

T ASKED the wind, "Where hast thou been 

Since last thy voice I heard, 
Since last the quivering of thy wings 

The leafy branches stirred, 
And freighted from its moss-clad home 

Each gentle nestling bird? 

174 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

"Ah, wherefore didst thou swell the storm 
When good ships went to sea; 

And why was bent the tall stout mast — 
The cordage rent by thee; 

And why, when shattered bark went down, 
Thy shout of victory?" 

"If o'er the ocean I have swept 
And lashed its waves to heaven, 

While high before me on the surge 
The hapless bark was driven. 

And loud and fearful rose the cry 
Of men from warm life riven, 

"I did His bidding who doth hold, 

In His all-powered hand, 
The whirlw^ind that hath swept in might 

O'er ocean wave and land ; 
I questioned not why such things were — 

Can mortal understand?" 



Do thou His bidding — question not 
Nor cower like frightened dove; 

Thou art the messenger of God, 
Sent from the heights above. 

Know thou art by the Father bid, 
Th^^ God — and God is Love. 

Mrs. a. R. Levy. 



Ben Kar shook' s Wisdom 

I 

<<\)r^OULD a man 'scape the rod?" 

Rabbi Ben Karshook saith, 
"See that he turn to God 
The day before his death." 

175 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

"Ay, could a man inquire 
When it shall come!" I say. 

The Rabbi's eye shoots fire — 
"Then let him turn today!" 

II 

Quoth a young Sadducee; 

"Reader of many rolls, 
Is it so certain we 

Have, as they tell us, souls?" 

"Son, there is no reply!" 

The Rabbi bit his beard: 
Certain, a soul have / — 

We may have none," he sneered. 

Thus Karshook, the Hiram's-Hammer, 
The Right-hand Temple-column, 

Taught babes in grace their grammar, 
And struck the simple, solemn. 

Robert Browning. 

The Vision of Huna 

HTHE sun had set upon Jerusalem, 

And scattered rosy circles round the mount. 
Whereon the ruins of the Temple lay. 

Beneath the shadow of a crumbling wall 
Stood Rabbi Huna. His mind was sad; 
For on this spot, not many years before. 
The holy Temple shone to all the earth, 
And now was changed, alas! and desolate. 

"Oh, how I love thee, my Jerusalem." 

So sighed the rabbi, as he sank to rest, 

"Oh, how I love thee, tho' upon thy neck 

With crushing force the conqueror's foot is pressed. 

The last rapt strains of the prophetic lyre 

'176 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

I seem to hear across thy sloping hills. 
Bright visions of the glory thrill me yet, 
When in thy prophet's words in bridal robe 
Thou wast betrothed unto Israel's God ; 
And now — ." The rabbi faltered as he thought, 
Then sighing fell into a restless sleep. 

Strange fancies came to Huna as he slept. 

Again he trod the Temple's sacred courts, 

But there no altar dripped with streaming gore; 

No groans of sacrificial sheep were heard, 

No swelling chant, no pomp of liturgy. 

No loudly spoken prayer, no mumbling lips, 

No smiting of the breast, no postures vain; 

A reverent throng with every impulse bent 

To worship God in simple brotherhood. 

They had, indeed, their holy litanies. 

Which not in book or scroll alone were writ; 

'An open hand, a humble heart and mind, 

An overflowing fount of love and truth, 

With aspirations for the beautiful. 

The true, the good, the pure. 

The rabbi wakes. 
Dead sounds of tumult rouse him from his sleep, 
A sprawling band of Roman soldiery. 
With cries of triumph, track him to ttie spot. 
His helpless form the savage spears soon pierced, 
And with "Shema Yisroel!" Huna dies. 
Upon his face there rests a placid smile. 
As if he trod the New Jerusalem. 

Abram S. Isaacs. 



Rabbi Ben Hissar 

O ABBI BEN HISSAR rode one day 
"*"^ Beyond the city gates. His way 
Lay toward a spot where his own hand 
Had buried deep within the sand 

177 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

A treasure vast of gems and gold 
He dared not trust to man to hold. 

But riding In the falling light, 
A pallid figure met his sight — 
An awful shape — he knew full well 
'Twas the great Angel Azrael. 
The dreadful presence froze his breath; 
He waited tremblingly for death. 

"Fear not," the Angel said, "I bear 
A message. Rabbi Ben-HIssar, 
One thing the Lord hath asked of thee 
To prove thy love and loyalty. 
Therefore now I am come to bring 
Thy rarest jewel to thy King." 

Rabbi Ben-HIssar bowed his head, 
"All that I have Is his!" he said. 
The angel vanished. All that day 
He rode upon his lonely way 
Wondering much what precious stone 
God would have chosen for his own. 
But when he reached the spot he found 
No other hand had touched the ground. 

Rabbi Ben-HIssar looked and sighed 
"It was a dream!" he sadly cried. 
"I thought that God would deign to take 
Of my poor store for his dear sake. 
But 'twas a dream! My brightest gem 
Would have no luster meet for him !" 

Slowly he turned and took his way 
Back to the vale where the city lay. 
The path was long, but when he came 
Unto the street which bore his name 
He saw his house stand dark and drear, 
No voice of welcome, none of cheer. 

178 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

He entered and saw what the Lord had done. 

Lo! Death had stricken his only son! 

Clay he lay, In the darkened hall, 

On the stolid bier, with the funeral pall. 

The pale death-angel Azrael 

Had chosen a jewel that pleased him well. 

Rabbi Ben-Hissar bent his head. 

"I thank thee, Lord," was all he said. 

Anonymous. 



The Messenger 

D ABBI BEN JOSEF, old and blind, 

Pressed by the crowd before, behind, 
Passed through the market place one day, 
Seeking with weary feet his way. 
The city's traffic loud confused 
His senses^ to retirement used; 
The voice of them that bought and sold, 
iWith clink of silver piece and gold. 

"Jehovah," cried he, jostled sore, 
Fearing to fall and rise no more, 
*'Thine angel send to guide my feet. 
And part the ways where danger meet." 
Just then a beggar, as he passed, 
A glance of pity on him cast. 
And, seeing so his bitter need, 
Stretched forth his hand his steps to lead. 

"Not so," Ben Josef cried, "I wait 
A guide sent from Jehovah's gate." 
The beggar left, thus rudely spurned 
Where gratitude he should have earned. 
As day wore on the hubbub rose. 
Louder and harsher to Its close. 
The old man, weary, sought in vain 
An exit from the crowd to gain. 

179 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Jostled at every turn his feet 
Stumbled upon the ill-paved street; 
Once more he cried, "Jehovah, w^here 
The answer to thy servant's prayer? 
No angel, swift-winged, from thy throne, 
Has hither for the helping flown." 
Then came a whisper, clear and low, 
*'My messenger thou didst not know. 

"For in a beggar's humble guise 
His outstretched hand thou didst despise. 
Nor cared beneath his rags to find 
The heart that made his action kind. 
See now that thou the lesson learn, 
Lest he whose face thou canst not see 
Should prove a messenger from Me." 

O. B. Merrill. 



The Forgotten Rabbi 

{^"His memory for a blessing!'^) 

O ABBI BEN SHALOM'S wisdom none but his 

scholars know, 
(High let his spirit journey, e'en as his flesh lies 

low!) 
He, ere he spake the *'Shema," prayed that his fame 

might cease: — 
"How shall I give you blessing if you begrudge me 

peace?" 

Rabbi Ben Shalom's teaching clings to his scholars 
still. 

Oft to his school came, fasting, those who had 
dreamed of ill: 

God in such dreams had spoken — how could they an- 
swer best? 

"Laugh at the fear," said Rabbi. "God has a right 
to jest!" 

1 80 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

Rabbi Ben Shalom's kindred long in his ear deplored 
Alms they had spent to nourish one with a secret 

hoard ; 
Who of their daily table — robber of God ! — had taste : 
''Have I not heard," said Rabbi, ''God has enough to 

waste ?" 

Rabbi Ben Shalom, silent, sat with a dead man's son. 

"I, at his grave, O Rabbi, knew what my sins had 
done! 

Great but for me, how humbled. . . . Can I appease 
the dead ?" 

"Cherish his seed," said Rabbi, "Strive to be great in- 
stead!" 

Rabbi Ben Shalom's coming mirth unto mirth could 

bring — 
Fill him the cup, he'd drain it ; strike on the harp, 

he'd sing! 
Blind seemed his joy to many, when on his brows 

death sat — 
Only the few knew better; knew he rejoiced — in that! 

Thus have Ben Shalom's scholars dug him a lowly 

bed— 
(How can the soul and body ever a like path tread?) 
Thus when in Shool they slight him, say that "his 

fame should cease," 
Whoso gainsays their folly grudges his master peace! 

G. M. H. 



The Two Rabbins 

npHE Rabbi Nathan, twoscore years and ten. 

Walked blameless through the evil world, and 
then, 
Just as the almond blossomed in his hair, 
Met a temptation all too strong to bear, 

i8i 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And mlserabl)^ sinned. So, adding not 
Falsehood to guilt, he left his seat, and taught 
No more among the elders, but went out 
From the great congregation girt about 
With sackcloth, and with ashes on his head. 
Making his graj^ locks grayer. Long he prayed, 
Smiting his breast; then, as the Book he laid 
Open before him for the Bath-Col's choice, 
Pausing to hear that Daughter of a Voice 
Behold the royal preacher's words: '*A friend 
Loveth at all times, yea, unto the end ; 
And for the evil day thy brother lives." 
Marvelling, he said : *'It is the Lord who gives 
Counsel in need. At Ecbatana dwells 
Rabbi Ben Isaac, who all men excels 
In righteousness and wisdom, as the trees 
Of Lebanon the small weeds that the bees 
Bow with their weight. I will arise and lay 
My sins before him." 

And he went his way 
Barefooted, fasting long with many prayers; 
But even as one who, followed unawares, 
Suddenly in the darkness feels a hand 
Thrill with its touch his own, and his cheek fanned 
By odors subtly sweet, and whispers near 
Of words he loathes, yet cannot choose but hear, 
So, while the Rabbi journeyed, chanting low 
The wail of David's penitential woe. 
Before him still the old temptation came, 
And mocked him with the motion and the shame 
Of such desires that, shuddering, he abhorred 
Himself; and, crying mightily to the Lord 
To free his soul and cast the demon out. 
Smote with his staff the blankness round about. 

At length, in the low light of a spent day, 

The towers of Ecbatana far away 

Rose on the desert's rim ; and Nathan, faint 

182 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

And footsore, pausing where for some dead saint 
The faith of Islam reared a domed tomb, 
Saw some one kneeling in the shadow, whom 
He greeted kindly: "May the Holy One 
Answer thy prayers, O stranger!" Whereupon 
The shape stood up with a loud cry, and then, 
Clasped in each other's arms, the two gray men 
Wept, praising Him whose gracious providence 
Made their paths one. But straightway, as the sense 
Of his transgression smote him, Nathan tore 
Himself away: "O friend beloved, no more 
Worthy am I to touch thee, for I came, 
Foul from my sins, to tell thee all my shame. 
Haply thy prayers, since nought availeth mine. 
May purge my soul, and make it white like thine. 
Pity me, O Ben Isaac, I have sinned !" 

Awestruck Ben Isaac stood. The desert wind 

Blew his long mantle backward laying bare 

The mournful secret of his shirt of hair. 

"I too, O friend, if not in act," he said, 

"In thought have verily sinned. Hast thou not read 

'Better the eye should see than that desire 

Should wander' ? Burning with a hidden fire 

That tears and prayers quench not, I come to thee 

For pity and for help, as thou to me. 

Pray for me, O my friend!" But Nathan cried, 

"Pray thou for me, Ben Isaac!" 

Side by side 
In the low sunshine by the turban stone 
They knelt; each made his brother's woe his own, 
Forgetting, In the agony and stress 
Of pitying love, his claim of selfishness; 
Peace, for his friend besought, his own became; 
His prayers were answered In another's name; 
And, when at last they rose up to embrace. 
Each saw God's pardon In his brother's face! 

183 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Long after, when his headstone gathered moss. 
Traced on the targum-marge of Onkelos 
In Rabbi Nathan's hand these words w^ere read: 
"Hope not the cure of sin till Self is dead; 
Forget it in love's service, and the debt 
Thou canst not pay the angels shall forget; 
Heaven's gate Is shut to him who comes alone ; 
Save thou a soul, and it shall save thy own!" 

John Greenleaf Whittier. 



The Two Rabbis 

'X'HERE stood upon Moriah's mount, 
"*" Two aged men with hoary hair; 
One glanced around with smiling brow, ' 

The other wept in deep despair. 

''Jerusalem, Oh ! Jerusalem ! 

Land of my love," the weeper cried; 
"Thy scattered sons in exile weep, 

And alien are thy state and pride. 

"Fierce jackals 'mid thy ruins howl; 

The prowling lion seeks his prey 
On the spot where once thy temple stood ; 

And thy brave children, — Where are they? 

"With weary feet, and aching heart, J 

Scattered, despised, a fallen race, * 

They wander far in alien lands, 
And seek in vain a resting place. 

"And then how canst thou smile, to see 

Our hopes, our glory perish all? 
How canst thou gaze with joyous glance 

Upon our temple's ruined wall?" 

184 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

"I smile," the other said, "because. 
In all the Eternal's power I see. 

And hope springs up within my heart, 
Even from our depths of misery. 

"For surely as the Almighty hand 

Destroyed our land for guilt and crime, 

So surely will he raise us up 
To joy, at his appointed time. 

"Hath he not said that Israel's sons 
Shall once again be free and great? 

Hath he not said, in Zion's halls 
Shall once again be kingly state? 

"A great and glorious destiny 
Will yet be ours in future years; 

And thus my face with smiles is glad, 
While thine is dewed with bitter tears." 



Mrs. Levitus. 



At Last 

'T'HE Rabbi Levi let his thoughts be cast 
Upon the current of remembered life. 
And saw the faces of his child and wife. 
So fair and mystical, it well might seem 
As If he saw by moonlight in a dream 

What he had seen In sunlight In the past. 

Yet at remembered sin he starts to see 
Remorse, most dreaded angel of the Lord, 
Flash back the sunshine from his awful sword. 
His wan cheek flushes like a dying brand; 
"Take back, O Angel, In thy strong right hand 

This sweet but cruel gift of memory." 

185 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

"Not so," the angel answered; "thou shalt live, 
Love and remember till thy work is done." 
And thus the Rabbi toiled, and did not shun 
To look upon what he himself had wrought. 
For years he freely learned and freely taught 

The wisdom that his own mistakes could give. 

The Rabbi Levi, when his head was white, 
Heard a soft voice, "Henceforth no more for you 
Shall memory come as flame, but cooling dew; 
"Take thou the comfort of thy heart's release. 
For with thine own life thou shalt be at peace." 

So, smiling, he passed out into the light. 

Adelaide G. Waters. 



The Passin.g of Rabbi As si 

/^UTWORN by studious toil and age, 

^^ The Rabbi Assi, saintly sage, 

Upon his humble pallet lay. 

Awaiting death, at close of day. 

Silent and sad amid the gloom 

Of that poor, pathetic room, 

Some fond disciple hovered near. 

Intent his parting words to hear. 

The mellow light of sunset spread 

A glory round his snow-white head, 

And as, amazed, they saw the trace 

Of tears upon his pallid face, 

One came and knelt beside the bed, 

Caressed the thin, white hand, and said: 

"Dear Rabbi, wherefore weepest thou? 

Let no sad thoughts disquiet now 

The peace of thy departure hence 

To heavenly rest and recompense. 

Thou hast been pure in heart and mind, 

Meek, modest, patient, gentle, kind. 

Recall with gratitude and joy 

Thy consecrated life's employ. 

i86 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

Devoted to the sacred law, 

Thou didst unselfishly withdraw 

From all publicities; and when 

With one accord thy fellow-men 

Chose thee their judge, thou didst refuse 

All worldly service, and didst choose 

To live sequestered from all care, 

For God, in study and in prayer." 

"Cease," cried the Rabbi in distress, 
"Make not my cup of bitterness 
More bitter with the shame and pain 
Of praise as Ignorant as vain. 
My soul is sorrowful, my son. 
For public duties left undone. 
I mourn the quest of truth pursued 
In disregard of brotherhood ; 
The narrow, blind, scholastic zeal 
That heeded not the common weal; 
The subtle selfishness and pride 
In which I put the world aside 
And sought an individual good 
In self-complacent solitude, 
Withheld my aid and stayed my hand 
From truth and justice in the land, 
And weakly failed to exercise 
The law in which I would be wise. 

"Wherefore with tears, I plead with you, 
Dear friends, a nobler course pursue, 
Beware the self-indulgent mood 
Of unconcern for public good. 
Think not in cloistered, studious ease 
Wisdom to win or God to please. 
For wisdom moulders in the mind 
That shuts Itself from human kind, 
And piety, with self-content, 
Becomes a barren sentiment, 
The bread of life Is turned to stone 
For him who hoards it as his own. 

187 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

O see betimes — what late I saw — 
That only love fulfills the law, 
In loving kindness hear and heed 
The plaintive cries of human need, 
Protect the weak against the strong, 
Uphold the right and right the wrong. 
Assuage life's miseries and pains, 
Console its sorrows, cleanse its stains; 
Count worthy of all toil and strife 
These common interests of life 
More precious than the richest store 
Of secular or sacred lore — 
Your mission and ambition be 
God's service in humanity." 

He paused, and, rapt in silent prayer, 

His spirit seemed awhile elsewhere, 

And at his prayer the peace was given 

For which his sorrowing soul had striven; 

At eventide the light had come 

To guide him through the darkness home, 

Then with a smile of sweet surprise 

He woke and lifted up his eyes 

And praised the Lord with trembling voice, 

He bade his weeping friends rejoice, 

And said, "Beloved, let me hear 

Once more the Shepherd-psalm of cheer." 

And they repeated, soft and low. 

That sweetest song that mortals know; 

And then in accents calm and grave 

His benison to them he gave. 

"May God who comforts my sad heart 
And bids me now in peace depart. 
Bless, guide and keep you evermore! 
Abundantly on you outpour 
The riches of his truth and grace. 
Show you the favor of His face. 
Your minds and hearts with ardor fill 
To know and do His holy will. 

i88 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

With heavenly wisdom make you wise 
In service and self-sacrifice, 
Give you rich fruits of toil and tears, 
And — after long and useful years — • 
The blessedness of those who come 
With sheaves and songs, rejoicing, home." 

The Rabbi's failing strength was spent. 

In silent sorrow o'er him bent 

With bated breath the faithful few, 

And heard him faintly say, "Adieu ! 

The night grows dark! the hour Is late! 

We now, dear friends, must separate. 

A thousand-fold may God requite 

Your love and care. Good-by; Good-night! 

And peaceful rest till break of day!" 

So Rabbi Assi passed away. 



Fact, legend, parable of old? 

What matters — so the truth be told — 

Historic or fictitious frame? 

The Rabbi's likeness is the same. 

And whosoever hath an ear 

To hear his counsel, let him hear! 

Edwin Pond Parker. 



The Lent Jewels 

A Jewish Apologue 

TN schools of wisdom all the day was spent; 
His steps at eve the Rabbi homeward bent. 
With homeward thoughts, which dwelt upon the wife 
And two fair children who consoled his life. 
She, meeting at the threshold, led him in 
And with these words preventing, did begin: 
"I, greeting ever your desired return. 
Yet greet it most today; for since this morn 

189 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

I have been much perplexed and sorely tried 
Upon one point, which you shall now decide. 
Some years ago, a friend unto my care 
Some jewels gave — rich, precious gems they were; 
But having given them in my charge, this friend 
Did afterward not come for them, nor send. 
But in my keeping suffered them so long, 
That now it almost seems to me a wrong 
That he should suddenly arrive today. 
To take those jewels, which he left, away. 
What think you? Shall I freely yield them back, 
And with no murmuring? so henceforth to lack 
Those gems myself, which I had learned to see 
Almost as mine for ever, mine in fee!" 

"What question can be here? your own true heart 

Must needs advise you of the only part; 

That may be claimed again which was but lent, 

And should be yielded with no discontent; 

Nor surely can we find in this a wrong, 

That it was left us to enjoy it long." 

"Good is the word," she answered; "may we now 

And evermore that it is good allow!" 

And, rising, to an inner chamber led. 

And there she showed him, stretched upon one bed, 

Two children pale, and he the jewels knew. 

Which God had lent him, and resumed anew. 

Richard Chenevix Trench. 



The Loan 

(Midrash Yalkut, iii, p. 165) 

TTHE Rabbi Meir, 

A black cap on his white hair, 
And him before 

Unfurled the great book of the Law, 
Sat in the school and taught. 

190 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

Many a winged thought 

Flew from his lips, and brought 

Fire and enlightenment 

Unto the scholars bent 

Diligently at their writing. 

And all the while he was inditing, 

His soul was near to God 

Above the dull earth that he trod. 

And as the lark doth sing 

High up and quivering 

In the blue, on heavenward wing, 

But ever its breast 

Keepeth above its nest, 

And singing it doth not roam 

Beyond hearing of its home, 

So the Rabbi, however high he soared 

In his teaching, or praying, sung 

Close to the ear of his Lord, 

Yet ever above his home, his wife and young. 

Slowly there stole the gloom 

Of evening into the room. 

Then he rose and shut the book 

And • casting about a look, 

Said, with a wave 

Of the hand : "God gave 

The light, and hath taken away, 

With the Lord begun, 

With the Lord run, 

With the Lord done, 

Is the day." 

Then his way 

Homeward cheerfully he took. 

In the little house, sedate. 

For her husband did await 

Beruriah. And for her lord 

She had laid the supper on the board. 

And a lamp was lighted up, 

By which he might sup. 

191 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

He kissed her upon the brow, 

And spake to her gently: "How 

Are the lads today? 

Tell me, Beruriah, pray." 

There glittered on her cheek 

Two jewels, ere she could speak 

And answer, "They are well. 

Sit you and eat your supper, whilst I tell 

What to me befell; 

And assure me in what way 

You think it had been best 

That I had acted." Thus addressed, 

He sat him at his meal. 

And began to eat: "Reveal 

Thy case," he said. "Yet tell me, I pray, 

First — where are my boys today?" 

Then suddenly she said, 

With an averted head : 

"Many years are flown 

Since one a precious loan 

Entrusted to my care, until he came 

That treasure to reclaim." 

The Rabbi spoke: "Of old 

Tobit confided his gold 

To Raguel 

At Ecbatane. Well, 

What further? — But say, 

Where are my lads, I pray?" 

"For many years that store 

I jealously watched o'er. 

Do you think, my lord, that loan 

In fourteen years would become my own?" 

Then, with a glance of blame. 

He answered, as he shook his head : 

"For shame. 
Wife of my bosom! It were not thine 
Should forty years upon thee shine, 
And the owner not return 

192 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

To demand It. Berurlah, learn 
Not to covet." 

Then he paused, and said, 
Moving the lamp: ''Thine e3es are red, 
Berurlah: wherefore?" 

But she broke 

In on his question, and thus spoke: 
"To-day there came 
To the door the same 
One who had lent the treasure, 
And he said, 'It Is my pleasure 
To have the loan restored.' 
What do you think, my lord? 
Should I have withheld It, Meir?" 
At his wife with astonished stare 
Looked the Rabbi. "O my wife! 
Light of my eyes, and glory of my life ! 
Why ask this question?" 

Then he said. 
As his eyes wandered towards the bed : 
"Why Is the sheet. 
Usually smooth and neat, 
Lifted Into many a fold and pleat?" 
But she asked : "Should I repine 
At surrendering what was not mine 
To him who claimed it?" 

"It was a trust, 
Wife of my bosom! What do you ask? — Repine 
What! do 5^ou lust 
To keep what Is not thine?" 
And once again : 
"Where are my boys?" 

She took him by the hand. 
Whilst o'er her features ran a thrill of pain. 
And brought him to the bed, and bid him stand 
There, as she touched the sheet, and said: 

193 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

"The Lord who gave hath taken. They are dead." 

Softly she raised 

The sheet; and with awe 

The Rabbi his children saw 

In the soft twilight 

Lying silent, and still and white; 

And he said, "Praised 

Be the Name of the Lord. 

My wife and I are content 

That the goodly loan to us lent 

Should be restored." 

Sabine Baring-Gould. 



The Two Friends 

A Rabbinical Tale 

r^ OOD Rabbi Nathan had rejoiced to spend 

^^ A social se'nnight with his ancient friend. 

The Rabbi Isaac. In devout accord 

They read the Sacred Books, and praised the Lord 

For all His mercies unto them and theirs; 

Until, one day, remembering some affairs 

That asked his instant presence, Nathan said, 

"Too long, my friend (so close my soul is wed 

To thy soul), has the silent lapse of days 

Kept me thy guest; although with prayer and praise 

The hours were fragrant. Now the time has come 

When, all-reluctant, I must hasten home, 

To other duties than the dear delights -;• 

To which thy gracious friendship still invites.'* 

"Well, be it so, if so it needs must be." 

The host made answ^er; "be it far from me 

To hinder thee in aught that Duty lays 

Upon thy pious conscience. Go thy ways 

And take my blessing! — but, O friend of mine. 

In His name, whom thou servest, give me thine!" 

"Already," Nathan answered, "had I sought 

Some fitting words to bless thee; and I thought 

194 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

About the palm-tree, giving fruit and shade; 
And in my grateful heart, O friend, I prayed 
That Heaven be pleased to make thee even so! 
O idle benediction ! Well I know 
Thou lackest nothing of all perfect fruit 
Of generous souls, or pious deeds that suit 
With pious worship. Well I know thine alms 
In hospitable shade exceed the palm's; 
And, for rich fruitage, can that noble tree. 
With all her opulence, compare with thee? 
Since, then, O friend, I cannot wish thee more, 
In thine own person, than thy present store 
Of Heaven's best bounty, I will even pray 
That, as the palm-tree, though It pass away, 
By others, of Its seed, is still replaced, 
So thine own stock may evermore be graced 
With happy sons and daughters, who shall be, 
In wisdom, strength, and goodness, like to thee!" 

John Godfrey Saxe. 



The Rabbi's Vision 

DEN LEVI sat with his books alone 
At the midnight's solemn chime, 
And the full-orb'd moon through his lattice shone 

In the power of autumn's prime; 
It shone on the darkly learned page. 
And the snowy locks of the lor.ely Sage — 
But he sat and mark'd not its silvery light, 
For his thoughts were on other themes that night. 

Wide was the learn'd Ben Levi's fame 

As the wanderings of his race — 
And many a seeker of wisdom came 

To his lonely dwelling place ; 
For he made the darkest symbols clear, 
Of ancient doctor and early seer. 

195 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Yet a question ask'd by a simple maid 
He met that eve in the linden's shade, 
Had puzzled his matchless wisdom more 
Than all that ever it found before; 
And this it was: "What path of crime 
Is darkest traced on the map of time?" 

The Rabbi ponder'd the question o'er 

With a calm and thoughtful mind, 
And search'd the depths of the Talmud's lore — 

But an answer he could not find ; — 
Yet a maiden's question might not foil 
A Sage inured to Wisdom's toil — 
And he leant on his hand his aged brow. 
For the current of thought ran deeper now: 

When, lo! by his side, Ben Levi heard 

A sound of rustling leaves — 
But not like those of the forest stirr'd 

By the breath of summer eves. 
That comes through the dim and dewy shades 
As the golden glow of the sunset fades, 
Bringing the odors of hidden flowers 
That bloom in the greenwood's secret bowers — 

But the leaves of a luckless volume turn'd 

By the swift impatient hand 
Of student 3^oung, or of critics learn'd 

In the lore of the Muse's land. 
The Rabbi raised his wondering eyes — 
Well might he gaze in mute surprise — 
For, open'd wide to the moon's cold ray, 
A ponderous volume before him lay! 

Old were the characters, and black 
As the soil when sear'd by the lightning's track, 
But broad and full that the dimmest sight 
Might clearly read by the moon's pale light; 

196 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

But, oh ! 'twas a dark and fearful theme 

That fill'd each crowded page — 
The gather'd records of human crime 

From every race and age. 

All the blood that the Earth had seen 
Since Abel's crimson'd her early green; 
All the vice that had poison'd life 
Since Lamech wedded his second wife; 
All the pride that had mock'd the skies 

Since they built old Babel's wall; — 
But the page of the broken promises 

Was the saddest page of all. 

It seem'd a fearful mirror made 

For friendship ruin'd and love betray'd, 

For toil that had lost its fruitless pain, 

And hope that had spent its strength in vain; 

For all who sorrow'd o'er broken faith — 

Whate'er their fortunes in life or death — 

Were there in one ghastly pageant blent 

With the broken reeds on which they leant. 

And foul was many a noble crest 

By the Nations deem'd unstain'd — 
And, deep on brows w^hich the Church had bless'd, 

The traitor's brand remain'd. * 

For vows in that blacken 'd page had place 

Which time had ne'er reveal'd 
And many a faded and furrow'd face 

By death and dust conceal'd — 
Eyes that had worn their light away 
In weary watching from day to day, 
And tuneful voices which Time had heard 
Grow faint with the sickness of hope deferr'd. 

The Rabbi read till his eye grew dim 

With the mist of gathering tears, 
For it woke in his soul the frozen stream 

Which had slumber'd there for years 

197 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And he turn'd to clear his clouded sight, 

From that blacken'd page to the sky so bright — 

And joy'd that the folly, crime, and care 

Of Earth could not cast one shadow there. 

For the stars had still the same bright look 

That In Eden's j^outh they wore; — 
And he turn'd again to the ponderous book — 

But the book he found no more; 
Nothing was there but the moon's pale beam — 
And whence that volume of wonder came, 
Or how it pass'd from his troubled view. 
The Sage might marvel, but never knew! 

Long and well had Ben Levi preach'd 

Against the sins of men — 
And man}^ a sinner his sermon reach'd 

By the power of page and pen; 
Childhood's folly, and manhood's vice, 
And age with Its boundless avarice, 
AJl were rebuk'd, and little ruth 
Had he for the venial sins of youth. 

But never again to mortal ears 

Did the Rabbi preach of aught 
But the mystery of trust' and tears 

By that wondrous volume taught. 
And If he met a youth and maid 

Beneath the linden boughs — 
Oh, never a word Ben Levi said. 

But — "Beware of Broken Vows!" 

Frances Bro^vne. 



The Emperor and the Rabbi 

^^r\[JD Rabbi, what tales dost thou pour in mine ear, 

^^ What visions of glory, w^hat phantoms of fear, 
Of a God, all the gods of the Roman above, 
A mightier than Mars, a more ancient than Jove? 

198 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

"Let me see but His splendors, I then shall believe. 
'Tis the senses alone that can never deceive. 
But show me your Idol, if earth be His shrine, 
And your Israelite God shall, old dreamer, be mine!" 

It was Trajan that spoke, the stoical sneer 
Still played on his features sublime and severe, 
For, round the wild world that stooped to his throne, 
He knew but one god, and himself was that one! 

"The God of our forefathers," low bowed the Seer, 
"Is unseen by the eye, is unheard by the ear; 
He is Spirit and knows not the body's dark chain ; 
Immortal His nature, eternal His reign. 

"He is seen in His power, when the storm is abroad ; 
In His justice, when guilt by His thunders is awed; 
In His mercy, when mountain and valley and plain 
Rejoice in His sunshine, and smile in His rain." 

"Those are dreams," said the monarch, "wild fancies 

of old ; 
But what God can I w^orship, when one I behold? 
Can I kneel to the lightning, or bow to the wind? 
Can I w^orship the shape, that but lives in the mind ?" 

"I shall show thee the herald He sends from His 

throne." 
Through the halls of the palace the Rabbi led on, 
Till above them was spread but the sky's sapphire 

dome. 
And, like surges of splendor, beneath them lay Rome. 

And towering o'er all, in the glow of the hour. 
The Capitol shone, earth's high centre of power; 
A thousand j^ears glorious, yet still in its primej 
A thousand years more, to be conquered of Time. 

199 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

But the West was now purple, the eve was begun; 
Like a monarch at rest, on the hills lay the sun ; 
Above him the clouds their rich canopy rolled, 
With pillars of diamond, and curtains of gold. 

The Rabbi's proud gesture was turned to the orb: 
"O King! let that glory' thy worship absorb!" 
*'What! worship that sun, and be blind by the gaze?" 
No eye but the eagle's could look on that blaze." 

"Ho! Emperor of earth, if it dazzles thine eye 
To look on that orb, as it sinks from the sky," 
Cried the Rabbi, "what mortal could dare to see 
The Sovereign of him, and the Sovereign of thee!" 

George Croly. 



He of Prayer 

tJIDDEN in the ancient Talmud, 

Slumbereth this legend old, 
By the stately Jewish Rabbis 

To the listening people told ; 
Jacob's ladder still is standing, 

And the angels o'er it go 
Up and down from earth to heaven, 

Ever passing to and fro; 
Messengers from great Jehovah 

Bringing mortals good or ill. 
Just as we from law^s unchanging. 

Good or evil shall distill. 
He of Death, with brow majestic, 

Cometh wreathed with asphodel; 
He of life, with smile seraphic, 

Softly saying, "All is well." 
He of Pain, with purple pinions. 

He of Joy, all shining bright; 
He of Hope, with wings cerulean; 

He of innocence, all white. 

20O 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

And the rustling of their pinions, 

With the falling of their feet, 
Turneth into notes of music. 

Grand and solemn, soft and sweet. 
One — and only one — stands ever 

On the ladder's topmost round, 
Just outside the gate celestial, 

List'ning as to catch some sound; 
But it is not angel music 

Unto which he bends his ear, 
'Tis the passing prayer of mortals 

That he patient waits to hear. 
By him messengers are flitting. 

But he ever standeth there, 
For he is the Great Sandalphon 

Who is gathering every prayer. 
In his hands they turn to garlands. 

From whose flowers a fragrance floats 
Through the open gates celestial. 

Mingled wnth the angels' notes. 
For outside the golden portal 

Of that city of the skies 
All the earthly dross and passion 

Of the prayer of mortal dies. 
'Tis the heavenly essence only 

That can find an entrance there, 
Turned into the scent of flowers 

By Sandalphon — Him of Prayer. 



J. F. 



The Angel of Truth 



Based upon a passage of the Midrash, Bereshit Rabba, 
Chapter VIII. 

/^NCE th' omnipotent Maker of world without end 
^^ Bade the hosts of His angels in council attend ; 
And thus in His wisdom supernal He spake: 
"In the confines of earth in our image we'll make 

20I 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Man, whose spirit divine shall from Heav'n proclaim 

him, 
Yet as human we Adam, the earth-born, will name 

him." 
Then the band of bright beings, in potent dissent, 
Into two hostile factions asunder were rent. 

"Create him, I pray," cried the Angel of Love, 
"He will strive to resemble Thy nature above; 
I behold his employment — his labours how blest. 
He 'mid hunger and sickness will aid the distressed; 
With a tear in his eye, and compassion at heart. 
He will freely sweet solace where need is impart. 
Create man, I pray," cried the Angel of Love, 
"He will strive to resemble Thy spirit above." 

But the Angel of Faithfulness thereupon rose, 
The creation of man might and main to oppose; 
"He will break the most sacred of compacts, I weet, 
And the words that he utters be fraught with deceit; 
Nought but falsehood will issue from man's teeming 

brain. 
Whilst hypocrisy evei; forms part of his train." 
Quoth the Angel of Faithfulness; "God, in Thy plan 
Of creation include not a being like man." 

Then the Angel of Justice cried: "Heaven! create ]u*m, 

Love of Law and promotion of concord await him; 

I behold him fence in the possession of right, 

And all barbarous violence putting to flight ; 

With firmly fixed laws states and cities he'll bind, 

Whilst with order cementing the bonds of mankind. 

Let man be created, then," Justice implored, 

"By whom harmony jarred shall at last be restored.'* 

"O do not make man !" cried the Angel of Peace, 
"For ere long, 'neath his sway law and order shall 
cease ; 

202 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 

States and cities laid waste will attest where he's been, 
With his sw^ord steeped in blood of his brother, I 

ween : 
Dread war and destruction will follow his path, 
And the world be o'erspread with dire carnage and 

wrath. 
Great spirit of Life ! eno;ender him not, 
Who from records of earth law and order will blot." 

Thus in hopeless divergence, in Heaven's bright bow- 
ers. 
The spirits angelic were spending their powers, 
Till the Angel of Truth, in God's glory effulgent, 
Thus was summoned to plead in a tone more indulgent. 
"Truth! lead by thy light to the bliss of salvation, 
Free from errors and prejudice man's aberration. 
That each neighbour beside him a brother may seem, 
God above him the Father of all he shall deem, 
Tho' for thousands of years his pure mind be o'er- 

cast. 
With thine aid it shall shine all unclouded at last, 
Truth shall still of the claims of strict justice remind 

him. 
Till persistently seeking blest peace she shall find 

him. 
Then Truth, Justice, and Peace shall, in process of 

time. 
Loud proclaim upon earth Heaven's kingdom sub- 
lime." 

So man was created — though earth clogged his soul — 
May have wandered full oft from its heavenly goal — 
To make known the One Father, who wills that man- 
kind 
Be by Faith and by Truth, Peace and Justice com.- 

bined, 
Until God shall be King on that glorious day. 
And His sovereign Law all His creatures obey. 

Leopold Stein. 
203 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The Faithful Bride 

A M id r as hie Parable 

T^HERE Is a legend (and 'tis quaintl^'^ sweet), 

Of man and maid, who loved, long, long, ago. 
But fate was cruel, — they were forced to part, 
And she was left alone in grief and woe. 

And she was left alone in grief and woe, 

Nor heeded she their taunts and scornful jeers; 

But in the secret vigils of the night, 
His letters read again with many tears. 

Sweet promises, writ to her long ago — 

They warmed her heart these words of living flame; 
And much men marveled, for her trust proved true; 

With pomp and glory back her lover came. 

"My own," he said, "Why didst thou trust in me, 
When men but mocked, — and I away so long?" 

"Dear heart," she said, "I read thy loving words. 
Read and believed, and so my love grew strong." 

Wouldst read the moral in my simple lines? 

The bride is Israel, her Beloved, He 
Who ruleth heaven and earth, the Lord our God; 

And she who was so sad, shall happy be. 

And He shall say, "O tender rose of mine, 
Which I have taken back beyond recall, 

What kept alive thy simple faith in Me?" 

"Thy Law, O Lord, which was my joy, my all!" 

Anonymous. 



204 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 



The Tongue 

CAID Rabbi Simon to his son; 
'^"To market-place do quickly run 

Naphtali, my lusty lad, 

And buy the 'best' that can be had 
Of things to eat. I say the 'best,' 
Put thou thy intellect to test!" 

"A hind-let-loose," was Naphtali, 

And quick to strike the bargain best. 

*'Think ye, I bring a spicy tart, 

Or sweet-meats for our worthy guest?" 

The youth replied, "if so j^e're wrong, 

I've bought a well-preserved tongue." 

"The tongue had neither fat nor bone. 

Is tender, sweet and toothsome; 
This the food that not alone 

Humans eat, but also angels gladsome." 
"Well done," the rabbi said. "Now go 
My boy, and buy the 'worst' you know." 

Again the lad went out, and back 
He came with his bargain gruesome. 

A goodly tongue he showed, the same, 
He first did say was wholesome. 

"How's that, my son," the father said, 

"Can one thing be both good and bad?" 

"Yes, father," said young Naphtali, 

"In Holy Writ, in Book of Scriptures, 
Much wisdom and delight I've found. 
Thus saith the word of inspired song; 
Both life and death are in the tongue!" 

John D. Nussbaum. 



205 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The Tongue 

^^'T'HE boneless tongue, so small and weak, 
*" Can crush and kfll," declared the Greek. 

"The tongue destroys a greater horde," 
The Turk asserts, "than does the sword." 

The Persian proverb wisely saith, 
"A lengthy tongue — and early death*." 

Or sometimes take this form instead: 
"Don't, let your tongue cut off your head." 

"The tongue can speak a word whose speed," 
Say the Chinese, "outstrips the steed." 

While Arab sage doth this impart; 

"The tongue's great storehouse is the heart." 

From Hebrew wit the maxim sprung, 
"Though feet should slip, ne'er let the tongue." 

The sacred writer crowns the whole, 
"Who keeps his tongue doth keep his soul." 

Anonymous. 

The Universal Mother 

(Pirke Rabbi Eliezar, ii) 

"VY/HEN by the hand of God man was created, 

He took the dust of the earth from every quarter — 
From east and west, and from the north and south — 
That wheresoever man might wander forth. 
He should be still at home; and, when a-dying. 
On some far distant western shore, and seeking 
A shelter on the bosom of the Mother, 
The earth might not refuse to clasp him saying, 
"My offspring art thou not, O roving Eastern." 

206 



TALMUDrCAL PERIOD 

Wherever now the foot of Man shall bear him, 

Wherever by the final call o'ertaken, 

He is no stranger reckoned, or an outcast, 

But hears exclaim the Universal Mother, 

''Come, child of mine, and slumber in my bosom." 

Sabine Baring-Gould. 



Sandalphon 

I_IAVE you read in the Talmud of old, 
"*■•■' In the Legends the Rabbins have told 

Of the limitless realms of the air, 
Have you read it, — the marvelous story 
Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory, 

Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer? 

How, erect, at the outermost gates 
Of the City Celestial he waits. 

With his feet on the ladder of light. 
That, crowded with angels unnumbered. 
By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered 

Alone in the desert at night? 

The Angels of Wind and of Fire 
Chant only one hymn, and expire 

With the song's irresistible stress; 
Expire in their rapture and wonder, 
As harp-strings are broken asunder 

By music they throb to express. 

But serene in the rapturous throng, 
Unmoved by the rush of the song, 

With eyes unimpassioned and slow, 
Among the dead angels, the deathless 
Sandalphon stands listening breathless 

To sounds that ascend from below; — 

From the spirits on earth that adore, 
From the souls that entreat and implore 

207 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

In the fervor and passion of prayer; 
From the hearts that are broken with losses, 
And weary with dragging the crosses 

Too heavy for mortals to bear. 

And he gathers the prayers as he stands, 
And they change into flowers in his hands, 

Into garlands of purple and red ; 
And beneath the great arch of the portal, 
Through the streets of the City Immortal 

Is wafted the fragrance they shed. 

It is but a legend, I know — 
A fable, a phantom, a show. 

Of the ancient Rabbinical lore; 
Yet the old mediaeval tradition. 
The beautiful strange superstition. 

But haunts me and holds me the more. 

When I look from my window at night, 
And the welkin above is all white. 

All throbbing and panting with stars, 
Among them majestic is standing 
Sandalphon, the angel, expanding 

His pinions in nebulous bars. 

And the legend, I feel, is a part 

Of the hunger and thirst of the heart; 

The frenzy and fire of the brain, 
That grasps at the fruitage forbidden, 
The golden pomegranates of Eden, 

To quiet its fever and pain. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 



208 



TALMUDICAL PERIOD 



Repent One Day Before Thy Death 

l-JOLD thou thy friend's honor dear as is 

^ '' thine own, 

Be not to hasty passion prone; 

And since life 's but a fleeting breath, 

Repent one day before thy death. 

Rabbi Eleazar. 



Value of Repentance 

HTHE Doctors in the Talmud say 
*• That in this world one only day 
In true repentance spent will be 
More worth than Heaven's Eternitie. 

Robert Herrick. 



209 



Ill 

MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 



Now Die Away, My Tuneful Song 

\TOW die away, my tuneful song, 

A mournful time veils ancient grief 
In recent shrouds. Anonymous. 



Martyrdom 

I 
Vjf/ITHOUT, the lonely night is sweet with stars: 
'' But me an ancient grewsome tale has bound 
Of them He chose and later cast aground 
As on a raging sea to drift like spars. 

Great God! Was it but mockery Thy choice? 

Is martvrdom the highest crown you give? 

And shall a People, maimed and fugitive, 
Be bearer of the thunder of Thy Voice ? 

Burn low, my lamp, I cannot further read; 

The woes of countless thousands o'er me flood! 
From out the shadows lurid shapes arise: 
Of executioners who foam with greed. 

Of "holy" swords that drip with infants' blood, 
Of flames that roar and shapes that agonize! 

II i 

Behold ! What strange procession do I see ? 
Before my vision dimmed with tears of rage, 
Emerging as from mists that mar the page, 

In sadness stern they tread so solemnly. 

The shadows grimly lie to left and right 

Like huge and moving forests o'er them bent: 
Up winds the road in tortuous ascent. 

And far and faint a Peak in misty white. 

213 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And see! From out the lurking shadows leap 
Uncanny shapes of beasts with howl and shriek! 
White flash their fangs, like points of fire their 
eyes! 
The victims fall and neither groan nor weep; 
Each lifts his eyes unto the gleaming Peak 

And cries: **The Lord our God is One!" and dies! 

Ill 

And yet the night is sweet with stars: away 
Then put the tale of martyrs red with blood, 
Of them He chose to prove in fire and flood, 

Of saints defiled, and blazing auto-da-fe. 

Come! Ope j^our lattice: why forever read? W 
The million-jewelled heavens are awake 
As when to Abraham the Voice outspake: 

"As numberless as Heaven's stars thy seed!" 

Sweet, friendly stars! Your splendor calm 
Has hot since then diminished by a gleam! 
Are ye not witness to the promise still? 
Then, heir of sorrow, purge 3'our heart of qualm! 
Shall bitterness of soul dislodge the dream? 

The Peak still glimmers: thrill, my spirit, thrill! 

RuFUS Learsi. 

During the Crusades 

HTHY faithful sons, whom Thou in love hast owned, 
'■' Behold! are strangled, burnt and racked and 

stoned; '--^ n;,i<.c.v-/Ui4 :>Vi. 
Are broken on the wKeel ; iikfe felons hung; 
Or, living, into noisome charnels flung. 
I see them yonder, of their eyes bereft, ^^ amwai 
And there their mangled limbs in twain are cleft. 
Beneath the wine-press are their bodies drawn. 
Crushed, drowned, or with harsh saws asunder sawn. 

Eleazar. 

214 



MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 

C WIFT as birds of prey, they darted 
^ On our helpless men and women, 
Making martyrs of our people. 
But they slew the body only, 
And the soul escaped uninjured. 
They assailed us with false pretexts, 
Yea, with wrongful accusations — 
"For the festive season," said they, 
**Ye have slain a Christian infant!" 
Yet, withal, they promised pardon. 
If our faith we would relinquish. 
None of the believers faltered! 
First was Samuel executed; 
Next his wife, and then his daughter, 
Son's wife, brothers, and their offspring. 
Simchah bent his head in prayer; 
Joseph and his race we honor. 
For he went to death in triumph. 
Moses stood in fire encircled. 
Followed by his son and daughter; 
Who, entwined, would join their father. 
Israel's tears In streams were flowing; 
Nor could tears the flames extinguish. 
Also Shabtal and his consort, 
Who would not their faith abandon, * 
Were consumed to dust and ashes. '^-^ 
Gracious Lord, behold these victims. 
Who in death the truth attested, 
"God Is One, there is no other!" 

Menahem Ben Jacob. 



T 



HOU, to whom my name bears witness, 
Be not silent, I entreat Thee ; 
Leave not hid mine ebbing life's blood ! 
High above In heaven's regions. 
Far and wide In halls of learning. 
And where people meet together, 
Be my sacrifices published ! 

215 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

How my tender infants perished ; 
How their tortures laid me prostrate, 
Learn to know their deeds of horror ! 
We were crushed and rent asunder, 
Until corpse by corpse lay buried. 

TfC ^ Tf^ tIC ^ 

When suffering under tryant's torture, 
Our wives would practise priestly functions, 
And sacrifice their cherished offspring; 
While on the mother's knee they nestled. 
The woeful work was calmly finished ; 
As if they went to sleep in quiet. 
No heed was given to the precept, 
"Slay not the young one with its mother" ; 
For now no sheep from folds were taken. 
Tied down like lambs prepared for slaughter, 
There perished fathers, sons, whole households; 
And God was hallowed in his glory. 
When they beheld the pictured idols, 
They cried : Depart ! let us be murdered ! 

David Ben Meshullam. 



/^RUEL foes with hate inflamed, 
^^ Aimed at us their fatal blow; 
Guileless was the man they seized; 
And when savagely they slew him, 
Angels came and bade him welcome ; 
Took his soul in charge, and blessed it. 
O'er him Zion's daughter weepeth, 
Israel for Elijah mourneth. 
With the Holy One communing. 

''Throughout the kingdom of the nations, 
Who can be equalled to Thy people? 
They followed Thee through flame and flood 
As none on earth have followed Thee." 
Alas! our hearts within us melted, 

216 



MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 

And all our pride sank into ashes. 
Elijah rose in fire to heaven, 
And round the pile the congregation 
Gazed with amazement at the hero. 

The pride of Israel, precious gems, 
Were given over to the brute, 
As undefended by their chief. 
Baptizing tyrants seized .on those 
Who were the noblest of my race. 
It was the month when blossoms fresh 
Are ripening into golden fruit: 
My flowers had their perfume spread, 
When wicked men w'ith fiery rage 
Did carry off the helpless prey. 
They all, as one, resolved to die. 
No ransom would the priest accept. 
But harshly pressed them with his creed. 
They all who pined in prison's night 
Were vainly tortured all the day; 
As once, at Sinai, one in mind. 
They swore allegiance to their faith. 
Well would they die, but not rebel ; 
They dreaded none, but Judah's God. 
"To Him," said they, "our troth is pledged, 
Away with gods, the works of stone!" 
To test the fearless heroes' strength 
There stood prepared the funeral pile ; 
And they with joy awaited death. 
Like those whose bridal-day has dawned, i 

HiLLEL Ben Jacob. 



"VES, they slay us and they smite, 
* Vex our souls with sore affright; 
All the closer cleave we. Lord, 
To thine everlasting word. 
Not a word of all their Mass 
Shall our lips in homage pass; 

217 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Though they curse, and bind, and kill, 
The living God is with us still. 
Yes, they fain would make us now, 
Baptized, at Baal's altar bow ; 
On their raiment, wrought with gold, 
See the sign we hateful hold ; 
And, with words of foulest shame. 
They outrage. Lord, the holiest name. 
We still are thine, though limbs are torn; 
Better death than life forsworn. 

Noblest matrons seek for death, 

Rob their children of their breath JoH vi/I 

Fathers, in their fiery zeal, 

Slay their sons with murderous steel; 

And in heat of holiest strife, 

For love of Thee, spare not their life. 

The fair and young lie down to die 

In witness of Thy Unity; 

From dying lips the accents swell, 

"Thy God is One, O Israel" ; 

And bridegroom answers unto bride, 

"The Lord is One, and none beside"; 

And, knit with bonds of holiest faith. 

They pass to endless life through death. 

E. H. PlumptrEc 



OEHOLD, O Lord, Thy faithful people! 

"'-' The father slays his child, the dear one ; - 

The mother has her task accomplished. 

And sends to Thee her hallowed offspring. 

Across their knees the parents brandish 

The keen-edged knives for work of slaughter; 

The mother ties the child. 

The father makes the gash; 

They say a sacrificial blessing. 

For they are met to die together. 

And to make known Thy holy Oneness 

2i8 



:: MEDIAEVAL PERIOD {>. 

And one announces to the other, 
"This day we keep a feast of union!" 
Their children all they immolate, 
As free-will gifts, as bonds of love. 

Anonymous. 



HTHEY seized our holy congregations, 
*■ And sent among them fire, murder! 
The heroes all. Thy true adorers, 
Together met in convocation. 
They spared no more their offspring, 
Thy faith alone they honored. 
The great and small, together 
With mothers' babes, were slaughtered 
Like offerings at the festive season. 
They shouted out, "Remove your horrors, 
Not them, but death we freely foUowM" 
And from the homes resounded w^ailing; 
And in the streets the sword made havoc. 
*'C give me death!" the son entreated; 
This filled the father's heart with gladness, 
As though he went to joyous nuptials. 
The loving hand had hushed all sorrows, 
And from distress it brought deliverance.; 
It led the friend to blissful slumber. , , 

Ezra Ben Tanhum. 



A LTHOUGH tormented and ill-treated, 
^"^ And dragged to die upon the scaffold, 
We cling to Thee with growing fervor. 
They strike ^nd wound us sorely. 
To turn our hearts from Him that liveth, 
And to impress us with their worship. 
They tempt us with enticements, 
And would ensnare us with their cunning; 
That we, deserting Thee, should barter 
Our faith for faith in Baal's power. 

219 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Embroidered even on their vesture 

Is shown to us the sign of terror. 

With flattery, too, they w^ould beguile us; 

But we are Thine, though maimed and shattered! 

The pious wives despatch the work 

And offer up their guileless babes. 

The fathers quickly slay their sons, 

And wish not to survive their dead. \ 

To render homage to Thy unity. 

The young, the fair, prepare for death, 

With "Hear O Israel !" on their lips. 

The bride and bridegroom now breathe forth 

The dying words, "The Lord is One!" 

They who, in life were wedded. 

Through hallowed death are reunited. 

Kalonymus Ben Judah. 



Israel Mocked 

**Vf/HY so sad, thou princely child?" 

^ Moloch's servants scornfully chide, 
Times appear and pass away 
Why does son of Jesse hide? 
If your God in Heaven's height 
Will bring you to His holy hill 
Wherefore then we seek to know 
Why His chariots linger still? 

I hoped that all my foes 
Would see my swift redemption; 
But they mock and say: "Away as a cloud 
It passeth ; no hope is left for thee." 
I hearken shame-filled, and my tears 
Flow unresistingly. 

Anonymous. 



220 



MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 
The Massacre of the Jews at York 

An Historical Poejn 
"And scattered and scorn'd as thy people may be, 
"Our worship, O Father, is only for thee." Byrqn 

TTHERE is an old and stately hall, 

* Hung round with many a spear and shield, 

And sword and buckler on the wall 

Won from the foe in tented field: 

Yet there no warrior bands are seen. 

With martial step and lofty mien; 

But men with care, not age, grown white, 

Meet in York Castle hall to-night. 

And groups of maids and matrons too, 

With hair and eyes, whose jetty hue 

Belong to Judea's sunny land, 

Are mingling with that sorrowing band: 

What doth the Jew — the wandering race 

Of Israel, in such dwelling place? 

From persecution's deadly rage 

A refuge in those walls they sought, 

The zealots of a barb'rous age, 

Ruin upon their tribes had brought. 

• • • • » 

All was silent without, there was not a sound. 

There was not a whisper, there was not a breath 

To disturb the silence still and profound. 

All was hush'd as the vale of the shadow of death: 

Within was tumult — loud and wild debate 

'Mongst those who at that midnight council sate; 

Famine was on each check, and every eye 

Told fearfully of its wild ministry. 

Starvation and despair their councils urg'd. 

And in those feelings every other merged : 

Parents almost forgot their children's cry 

In their own overwhelming misery; 

As the rush of the waves when the winds are in 

motion. 
And the storm-gods abroad on the dark heaving ocean, 

221 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Was the voice of the crowd 'til the Rabbi arose, 
Then at once ever)' sound was hush'd into repose. 
Bent was his form, but more with care than age, 
Sorrow had worn the furrows in his face; 
Yet in the features of the revered sage 
Somewhat of youthful ardour might you trace/.K^f H*np 
As the old oak that's hoUow'd out by time 
Seems to retain the vigour of its prime, 
"Men of Israel," he said, with a proud flashing eye, 
"This night doth Jehovah command us to die 
The death of the brave, for the laws that He gave, 
Leave bondage and chains for the coward and slave! 
What is our crime, O what is the deed. 
For which so many are doom'd to bleed? 
Strangers — alike through every clime we are hurl'd, 
Through every land our seed is spread abroad — 
Scorn'd and despised, the outcasts of the world, 
Yet still the chosen people of our God ! 
We asked these Britons for ia home, 
A shelter from the inclement skies: 
Have we despoiled a Christian dome, 
Or sought a Christian sacrifice? 
We did but ask a dwelling place, 
And In return our wealth we gave ; 
They spurn'd us as an outcast race, 
And brand us with the name of slave: 
They hate us, for we seek to tread 
The peaceful path our fathers trod; .. ,, , 

They hate us, for we bow our heads .v',f.'\V 

Before the shrine of Israel's God ; 
And now because we sought to bring 
A tribute to their new crown'd king, 
Like savage beasts they hunt us down. 
Their streets with Jewish dead are strewn ; 
And they who can boast of mercy and love, 
And picture their God in the form of a dove, 
Are athirst for our blood, our possession they crave! 
But the wealth we have toiled for, they never shall 
have -r, ^t. .,-1^ ... r ,.. f , -t .,' . 

222 



MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 

While there's fire on the hearthstone or sword in the 

hall, 
By the hand of each other 'tis better to fall: 
There have been times, and this is such a time, 
When even suicide is not a crime: 
Behold how your wives and your children are cling- 

Around ye, and pray for a morsel of bread, 

While the cold heartless wretches beneath have been 

flinging 
Profusion away, and they carelessly tread 
On the food that your wives and your children would 

save 
From the pangs of starvation — the jaws of the grave! 
Then shall such monsters triumph o'er us? 
They think that yield to them we must, 
Where'er we turn there's death before us; 
We cannot to their mercy trust. 
We cannot on their faith rely, 

Then let us see our dear ones die; . f ;• 

Thus, thus will we defy our foes. 
By our own hands they all shall bleed, 
Their blood be on the heads of those 
Who goaded us to such a deed. 
The husband turneth to his wife. 
The lover to his lov'd doth cling — 
To raise an arm against the life , I a 

Of woman, is a fearful thing! 
Aye, so it is: but I have here 
A stake that is to me as dear, 

The solace of my widow'd years, I 

The object of my fondest cares." ? 

He pointed where there stood apart 
Watching the chosen one of her heart, jtofn -^o' 

A maiden passing fair; v • ' ' 

Her raven hair was backward flung. 
And on her brow of snow there hung 
A dark cloud of despair, I 

Ah! little did poor Rachel deem /- 

223 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

When In her spirits first bright dream 

With beaming eyes and flushing brow 

She listened to Manasseh's vow, 

That such a fearful hour as this 

Would ever blight her dream of bliss. 

She was Ben Israel's only child, 

A child of one long passed away, 

And he upon their loves had smil'd, 

And gladly named the bridal day. 

He glanc'd his eyes around, as he paused, .iu^nii' 

To mark the effect which his words had catised: 

The men sat silent, and scarce drew breath. 

As they heard the decree that doom'd them to death. 

The mother convulsively press'd to her heart 

The lov'd babe from whom she so soon was to part. 

The matron seem'd bound by a holier tie 

To the lord of her heart, with whom she must die. 

None murmured a sound — save a few who sate 

At the end of the hall, in deep debate; 

The quivering limb and downcast eye 

Told they were cowards who fear'd to die. 

At length Ben Ephralm rose and spoke. 

And at once the death-like silence broke: — 

"Ben Israel," he said, " 'tis a dread decree, 

For we might once again be free: 

We might bribe the foemen our lives to save, 

And snatch our little ones from the grave." 

Ben Israel rose, and dash'd the trace 

Of the tears from off his rugged face 

(Which had gathered there, In spite of his pride) 

Then turn'd to the coward and thus replied: — 

"Seek ye for mercy ? ask yon man of blood 

(Who dares to call himself a priest of God), 

For mercy! and ye will such mercy find 

As the pursuing huntsman gives the hind ; 

Such mercy as the hapless bird may seek 

When closely clutch'd within the vulture's beak! 

In yonder blood-stained city did they spare 

The brave, -the ag'd, the youthful, or the fair? 

224 



I 



MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 

No! babes from their mother's breasts were torn, 

And their dying shrieks on the air were borne; 

Nor did they heed the father's accents wild, 

Entreating them to save his darling child; 

But hew'd them down like cattle, where they stood. 

And wash'd out their religion in their blood! 

Women of Israel! would ye not rather 

Fall by the hand of a husband or father, 

Than brave the insults that await 

Ye, when they force the castle gate? 

When the Israelites echoed the Maccabees' cry 

As they raised the Asmonean banner on high, 

They stayed not to think upon danger or death, 

But glorified God with their last fainting breath. 

And left in their country's annals a name 

That will ne'er be erased from the records of fame. 

Then think on the glorious dead 

Of ages long gone by; 

Think on the cause for which they bled. 

And like them dare to die; 

For the laws which our God to his prophet reveal'd, 

Yes! our faith in their truth, with our blood must be 

seal'd. 
Depart! all ye who would be slaves. 
Nor dare disturb our latest breath: 
Depart! and leave the glorious graves 
For those who prefer to apostacy — Death." 
A few of the weaker and cowardly-hearted, 
Rose from their seats at his words and departed. 
All became silent then around, 
The very children hush'd their crying; 
In that vast hall there was not a sound. 
As Ben Israel read the prayers for the dying. 
He ceased: — Five hundred voices raise 
To heaven's high throne the hymns of praise. 
And ever as the echoes rung, 
The self-devoted victims sung — Halleluyah! 

Marion and Celia Moss. 



225 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The Harvesting of the Roses 

pROM his garden bed our Lord 

Blossoms for his pleasure chose, 
Who came to gather many a rose. 
Nobles waited for his word ; 
Amidst the rage of murderous blows 
They were in death to him restored. 

Menahem Ben Jacob. 

A Martyr's Death 

**YJ[/HERE is now Elijah's God?" 

;. ** When will scoff and scorning end? 

Has our God forsaken us? 

Higher and higher, 

Winged by fire. 

Soared Elijah's sainted soul, 

Bliss to earn in spheres of life. 

He saw his brethren sorely tried, 

And died for them a martyr's death. 

Menahem Ben Jacob. 

The Jewish Martyr 

<<DRING forth the Jew!" Ben Hassim said, "the 

caitiff of his creed. 
Who has reviled our holy faith, and triumphed in the 

deed; ^^•^'' .;^'7 

Blaspheming great Mahomet's name — by Allah! he 

shall die; 
Upon his own accursed head the blasphemy shall lie. 
Woe unto thee, thou Jewish dog! if thou fail to clear 

the guilt 
That is preferred against thee — deny it, if thou wilt! 
But decided proof of innocence must in clearest light 

be shown 
Or, by Medina's holy shrine, the flame shall have her 

own. 
How say you, son of Israel, to the charge that's now 

preferr'd ? 

226 



MEDIAEVAL PERIOD ■■^ 

By Mecca! 'tis the gravest that was ever told or 

heard ; 
Be cautious, then, and have a mind you add not lie to 

lie, . 
If truth is not found uppermost the bowstring's 

strength we'll try." 

"I am not guilty of the charge — 'tis foul and falsely 

made ; 
'TIs jealousy and malice in dreadful form convey'd — 
Convey'd to suit the purpose of those who bring me 

here; 
They're fellow-merchants with myself — we've traded 

many a year. 
I never even thought the words, the blasphemy, you 

name, 
1 swear by Heaven I'm innocent! I'll ever swear the 

same ; 
It is against our holy creed, which teaches us to love 
Each and all our fellow men — 'tis true, as God's 

above ! — 
And not revile, or lightly speak, whate'er their creed 

may be; .-. ■ ■ 

As this is taught, so have I learnt — the guilt "is not 



with me." 






"Upon the Koran's holy book the solemn truth 'I^ 

seal'd, 
The accusation's verified — your guilt is now reveal'd. 
Thy star has set, thy doom Is fix'd; before the setting 

sun 
Shall light the tops of yonder hills, know that thy 

course is run ; 
For death awaits, with greedy hand, so great a gain as 

thou. 
And what avails thy holy soul in such a time as now? 
That boasted zeal that warms your youth, that burns 

within your breast, 
Mayhap we'll try; your courage, too, shall also feel the 

test. 

227 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

A Mufti waits, In solemn guise, say, wilt thou join his 
band, 

And with him swell the numbers that overrun the land. 

Who believe In our holy Prophet — Mahomet, blest 
be he? 

Wilt thou a Mussulman become? If so, thou shalt be 
free. 

You'll not, and say, you'd rather die — ^by my faith, In- 
deed you're true; 

First hear the roar and see the blaze — you know not 
what you do." 

***** 

The faggots flame In fiery wreath ; behold a funeral 

pyre ; 
Before Its glowing embers fierce shall blanch, shall 

wane, expire — 
A sacrifice of human blood, of human flesh and bone, 
Must drop and crackle in that blaze — 'tis there no 

mercy's shown. 
Yet there he stands a martyr, unerring, true to God, 
So earnest in his dire resolve — so firm he pac'd the sod ; 
Undaunted by the quiv'ring thought of the death that 

did await — 
A death of bitter agony, of pain and anguish great. 
With arms across his stricken breast, and eyes serenely 

set. 
Calm was his gaze, so full of hope that speaking eye 

of jet; 
Upon that brow all dignified, sat piety resigned — 
A piety all hallow'd, with hope and trust combin'd. 
His was the hope, the vital hope, the hope that never 

dies, 
The light that even torture with Its deadliest throes 

defies ; 
The solemn, grand, and heavenly thought, of devotion 

— constant, true, 
That had mark'd his young and pious life, now gave 

him life anew; 

228 



MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 

And through the bitter vale of tears, the vale that leads 

to death, 
The unity of Israel's God he prais'd with sacred breath ; 
"O Lord! receive my soul," he cried; *'I am resign'd 

to die; 
Blest be Thy name, the terror's past, the horror I defy. 
The devouring flames may crackle, and sere the thews 

of youth, 
But mine it is the triumph — I die for faith and truth." 

Moss Marks. 

A Song of Redemption 

/^APTIVE of sorrow on a foreign shore, 

A handmaid as 'neath Egypt's slavery; 

Through the dark day of her bereavement sore 

She looketh unto Thee. 

Restore her sons, O Mighty One of old! 

Her remnant tenth shall cause man's strife to cease. 

O speed the message ; swiftly be she told 

Good tidings, which Elijah shall unfold: 

Daughter of Zion, sing aloud! behold 

Thy Prince of Peace ! 

// 
Wherefore wilt Thou forget us, Lord, for aye? 

Mercy we crave! 

O Lord, we hope in Thee alway. 

Our King will save! 

Surely a limit boundeth every woe. 

But mine enduring anguish hath no end; 

My grievous years are spent in ceaseless flow, 

My wound hath no amend. 
O'erwhelmed, my helm doth fail, no hand is strong 
To steer the bark to port, her longed for aim. 
How long, O Lord, wilt Thou my doom prolong? 
When shall be heard the dove's sweet voice of song? 
O leave us not to perish for our wrong, 

Who bear Thy Name! 

229 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Wherefore wilt Thou forget us, Lord, for aye? 

Mercy we crave ! 
O Lord, we hope in Thee alway. 

Our King will save ! 

Wounded and crushed, beneath my load I sigh, 
Despised and abject, outcast, trampled low; 
How long, O Lord, shall I of violence cry, 

My heart dissolve with woe? 
How many years, without a gleam of light, 
Has thraldom been our lot, our portion pain! 
With Ishmael as a lion in his might. 
And Persia as an owl of darksome night, 
Beset on either side, behold our plight 

Betwixt the twain. 

Wherefore wilt Thou forget us, Lord, for aye? 

Mercy we crave! 
O Lord, we hope in Thee alway. 

Our King will save! 

Is this Thy voice ? 
The voice of captive Ariel's woe unhealed? 
Virgin of Israel, arise, rejoice! 
In Daniel's vision, lo, the end is sealed : 

When Michael on the height 

Shall stand aloft in strength. 

And shout aloud in might, 
And a Redeemer come to Zion at length. 

Amen, amen, behold 

The Lord's decree foretold. 
E'en as Thou hast our souls afflicted sore, 
So wilt Thou make us glad for evermore ! 

Wherefore wilt Thou forget us. Lord, for aye? 

Mercy we crave! 
O Lord, we hope in Thee alway. 

Our King will save! 

Solomon Ibn Gabirol. 
(Translated by Nina Davis.) 

230 



MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 

Jehu da Ben. Halevy 

{Fragment) 

I 

**IF, Jerusalem, I ever 

* Should forget thee, to the roof 
Of my mouth then cleave my tongue, 
May my right hand lose its cunning — " 

In my head the words and music 
Round and round keep humming, ringing, 
And I seem to hear men's voices, 
Men's deep voices singing psalms — 

And of long and shadowy beards 
I can also catch some glimpses — 
Say, which phantom dream-begotten 
Is Jehuda ben Halevy? 

But they swiftly rustle past me, 
For the ghosts avoid, with terror. 
Rude and clumsy human converse; 
Yet, in spite of all, I knew him. 

Yes, I knew him by his forehead 
Pale and proud with noble thought, 
By the eyes of steadfast sweetness; 
Keen and sad they gazed in mine. 

But more specially I knew him 
By the enigmatic smiling 
Of the lovely lips and rhythmic 
That belong to poets only. 

Years they come, and years they vanish ; 
Seven hundred years and fifty 
It is now since dawned the birthday 
Of Jehuda ben Halevy. 

231 



I 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

At Toledo In Castile 
First he saw the light of heaven, 
And the golden Tagus lulled him 
In his cradle with its music. 

The unfolding of his powers 
Intellectual was fostered 
By his father strict, who taught him 
First the book of God, the Thora. 

With his son he read the volume 
In the ancient text, whose fair, 
Picturesque and hieroglyphic, 
Old-Chaldean, square-writ letters 

From the childhood of our world 
Have been handed down, and therefore 
Seem familiarly to smile on 
All with naive, childlike natures. 

And this ancient, uncorrupted 
Text the boy recited also 
In the Tropp — the sing-song measure, 
From primeval times descended. 

And the gutturals so oily, ■ 

And so fast he gurgled sweetly, 
While he shook and trilled and quavered 
The Schalscheleth like a bird, 

And the boy was learned early 

In the Targum Onkelos, 

Which is written In low-Hebrew | 

In the Aramaean idiom, I 

Bearing somewhat the resemblance 
To the language of the prophets 
That the Swabian does to German — 
In this curious bastard Hebrew, 

232 



MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 

As we said, the boy was versed, 
And ere long he found such knowledge 
Of most valuable service 
In the study of the Talmud. 

Yes, his father led him' early 
To the Talmud, and threw open 
For his benefit that famous 
School of fighting the Halacha. 

Where the athletes dialectic, 
Best in Babylon, and also 
Those renowned in Pumbeditha 
Did their intellectual tilting. 

He had here the chance of learning 
Every art and ruse polemic; 
How he mastered them was proven 
In the book Cosari, later. 

But the lights are twain, and differ, 
That are shed on earth by heaven ; 
There's the harsh and glaring sunlight, 
And the mild and gentle moonlight. 

With a double radiance also 
Shines the Talmud; the Halacha 
Is the one, and the Hagada 
Is the other light. The former 

I have called the school of fighting; 
But the latter, the Hagada 
I will call a curious garden, 
Most fantastic, and resembling 

Much another one that blossomed 
Too in Babylon — the garden 
Of Semiramis; 'mongst wonders 
Of the world it was the eighth. 

233 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Queen Semiramls, whose childhood 
With the birds was spent, who reared her, 
Many birdlike ways and habits 
In her later life retained ; 

And, unwilling to go walking 
On the flat and common earth, 
Like us other common mortals, 
Made a garden in the air — 

High on pillars proud, colossal, ^^^^ffV/ 
Shone the cypresses and palms, 
Marble statues, beds of flowers, 
Golden oranges and fountains; 

All most cunningly and surely 
Bound by countless hanging bridges. 
That might well have passed as creepers, 
And on which the birds kept swinging — 

Birds of many colours, solemn, 

Big, contemplative and songless, 

While the tiny, happy finches. 

Gaily warbling, fluttered round them — 

All were breathing, blest and happy. 
Breathing pure and balmy fragrance, 
Unpolluted by the squalid, 
Evil colour of the earth. 

The Hagada is a garden, ' T 

Is just such another whimsy 

Of a child of air, and often 

Would the youthful Talmud scholar, 

When his heart was dazed and dusty 
With the strifes of the Halacha, 
With disputes about the fatal 
Egg the hen laid on a feast day, 

234 



MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 

Or concerning other problems 
Of the same profound importance — ■ 
He would turn to seek refreshment 
In the blossoming Hagada, 

Where the beautiful old sagas, 
Legends dim, and angel-fables, 
Pious stories of the martyrs. 
Festal hymns and proverbs wise, 

And hyperboles the drollest, 
But withal so strong and burning 
With belief — where all, resplendent, 
Welled and sprouted with luxuriance! 

And the generous heart and noble 
Of the boy was taken captive 
By the wild romantic sweetness. 
By the wondrous aching rapture, 

By the weird and fabled terrors 
Of that blissful secret world, 
Of that mighty revelation 
For which poetry our name is. 

And the art that goes to make it. 
Gracious power, happy knowledge, 
Which we call the art poetic. 
To his understanding opened. 

And Jehuda ben Halevy 
Was not only scribe and scholar, 
But of poetry a master. 
Was himself a famous poet; 

Yes, a great and famous poet. 
Star and torch to guide his time, 
Light and beacon of his nation ; 
Was a wonderful and mighty 

235 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Fiery pillar of sweet song, 

Moving on in front of Israel's 

Caravans of woe and mourning 

In the wilderness of exile. - 

True and pure and without blemish 
Was his singing, like his soul — ^ 

The Creator having made it, 
With His handiwork contented, 

Kissed the lovely soul, and echoes 
Of that kiss forever after 
Thrilled through all the poet's numbers, 
By that gracious deed inspired. 

As in life, in song the highest 
Good of all is simply grace, ': ' 

And who hath it cannot sin in I 

Either poetry or prose. 

And that man we call a genius, 

By the grace of God a poet, -■ 

Monarch absolute, unquestioned, 

In the realm of human thought. 

None but God can call the poet 
To account, the people never — 
As in art, in life the people 
Can but kill, they cannot judge us. 

Heinrich Heine. 
(Translated by Margaret Armour.) 



To Judah Ha-Levi 

IMPASSIONED hours, when Hebrew was the key 
To sweetest rivalries 'twixt man and man. 
And poets sat enthroned amidst a clan 
Of choristers divine. How blithesomely 

236 



MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 

Those skylarks trilled, and flooded earth and sea 
With music, till the words enchanted fell 
In mute prostration 'neath the wizard's spell, 

And master note in Hebrew minstrelsy. 

At sunrise, or in watches of the night, 
When half a world is sunk in drowsiness, 

Sing to me of Castilian skies, O Sprite! 
Where Lilith veils her luresome loveliness. 

And I will stretch a tankard for the wine, 

And froth it full of tears for Spain's decline. 

M. L. R. Breslar. 



H 



How Loriji? 

OW long wilt thou in childhood's slumber lie? 



Know that youth flies like chaff the wind before. 
Can spring forever last? Nay, soon draws nigh 
Old age's messenger with tresses hoar. 
Shake thyself free from sin, as ere they fly. 
The birds shake of the night-dews' pearled store. 
Cast off temptations that thy peace defy. 
Like troubled waves upon a rocky shore, 
And follow after that pure company 
Of souls that seek God's goodness evermore 

JuDAH Ha-Levi. 



Backy My Soul 

I 

DACK, my soul, into thy nest; 
^^ Earth is not for thee; 
Still in heaven find thy nest ; 
There thou canst be free. 

237 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Strive not for this world's comman.d, . 

Look to what thou hast, ^Ui .ihiim 
Thou amidst the angels' band 

Shar'd the great repast. 

Demean thee 'fore the majesty 

Of him who reigneth there, 
And in a lordly company 

Be thou the courtier. 

JUDAH Ha-LeVI. 

(Translated by M. Simon.) 



Oh/ City of the World 

r\Yl\ city of world, most chastely fair; 
^^ In the far west, behold I sigh for thee. ^ J 

And in my yearning love I do bethink me '^ 

Of bygone ages; of thy ruined fane, . ' : 

Thy vanished splendor of a vanished day. ' 

Oh ! had I eagles' wings I'd fly to thee. 
And with my falling tears make moist thine earth. 
I long for thee; what though indeed thy kings 
Have passed forever; though where once uprose 
Sweet balsam trees the serpent makes his nest. 
Oh! that I might embrace thy dust, the sod 
Were sweet as honey to my fond desire. 

JuDAH Ha-LevI. 

(Translated by Kate Magnus.) 



The Immortality of Israel 

'X'HE sun and moon unchanging do obey 
"*■ The laws that never cease or night or day. 
Appointed signs are they to Jacob's seed 
That life eternal hath been them decreed. 

238 



MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 

And though, O Lord, thj^ left hand dealeth pain, 
Thy right shall lead them back to joy again. 
Let not despair oppress their quailing heart, 
Though radiant Fortune from their midst depart. 
But let this constant faith their soul uphold, 
That in the Book of Life their name's enrolled 
For all eternity: nor shall they cease 
While night and day do alternate in peace. 

JuDAH Ha-Levi. 
(Translated by Israel Cohen.) 



The Pride of a Jew 

VJ[/ITH all my heart, in truth, and passion strong, 

' ' I love Thee ; both in solitude and throng /. 

Thy name's with me, alone I shall not bide: "A 

My friend art Thou, though others from me glide. -jj^[ 
My lamp art too: my light shall never fade, : , /, 
Nor shall my foot e'er slip, by Thee upstayed. ,,[ 

They little knew who have despised me so, 
That shaming me doth cause my pride to glow. 
O Fountain of my life, I'll bless Thee aye, f dsuoHT 
And sing Thy praises, O my song, alway! .^^ y^|^ 

JUDAH Ha-LeVi1 'A 

(Translated by Israel Cohen.) ' 



The Lord Is My Portion 

CERVANTS of time, lo! these be slaves of slaves; 

^ But the Lord's servant hath his freedom whole, 

Therefore, when every man his portion craves,' iljfiH 

"The Lord God is my portion," saith my soul. '^ 

JUDAH Ha-LevI. 



239 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



My Heart Is in the East 

jV^Y heart Is in the East, tho' in the West I live, 
*'^ The sweet of human life no happiness can give, 
Religion's duties fail to lift my soul on high; 
'Neath Edom Zion writhes, in Arab chains I liel 
No joy in sunny Spain mine eyes can ever see 
For Zion, desolate, alone hath charms for me! 

JUDAH Ha-LeVI. 

(Translated by H. Pereira Mendes.) - 



Separation 

A ND so we twain must part ! Oh linger yet, 
**- And let me still feed my glance upon thine eyes. 
Forget not, love, the days of our delight, 

And I our nights of bliss shall ever prize. 
In dreams thy shadowy image I shall see, 

Oh, even in my dream be kind to me! 

Though I were dead, I none the less would hear 
Thy step, thy garment rustling on the sand. 

And if thou waft me greetings from the grave, 
I shall drink deep the breath of that cold land. 

Take thou my days, command this life of mine, 
If it can lengthen out the space of thine. 

No voice I hear from lips death-pale and chill. 
Yet deep within my heart it echoes still. 

My frame remains — my soul to thee yearns forth. 
A shadow I must tarry still on earth. 

Back to the body dwelling here in pain. 

Return, my soul, make haste and come again! 

JUDAH Ha-LeVI. 



240 



MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 



'^From Thee to Thee'' 

Yi/HEN all within Is dark, " 
^ And former friends misprise; 
From them I turn to Thee, 
And find Love in Thine eyes. 

When all within is dark, 

And I my soul despise ; 
From me I turn to Thee, 

And find Love In Thine eyes. 

When all Thy face Is dark, 

And Thy just angers rise; 
From Thee I turn to Thee, 

And find Love In Thine eyes. 

Solomon Ibn Gabirol. 

(Translated by I. A.) 



The Cry of Israel 

'X'HOU knowest my tongue, O God, 
**■ Fain would it bring 
A precious gift — the songs 
Thou makest me sing! 

Thou guidest my steps from eld; 

If boon too high 
I ask — Thou gavest me speech, 

Spurn not my cry! 

My thoughts hast Thou made pure 

As whitest fleece; 
Thou wilt not that mine heart 

Shall ne'er have peace. 

241 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Oh, be my refuge now, 

Even as of yore. 
My. God, my Savior, Thou — 

Tarry no more! 

Solomon Ibn Gabirol. 

(Translated by Solomon Solis Cohen.) 



O Soul, with Storms Beset! 

(^ SOUL, with storms beset, 

^■^ Thy griefs and cares forget! 

Why dread earth's transient woe, 
When soon thy body In the grave unseen 

Shall be laid low, 
And all will be forgotten then, as though 

It had not been? 

Wherefore, my soul, be still! 

Adore God's holy will, 

Fear death's supreme decree. 
Thus mayst thou save thyself, and win high aid 

To profit thee, 
When thou, returning to thy Lord, shalt see 

Thy deeds repaid. 

Why muse, O troubled soul, 

O'er life's poor earthly goal? 

When thou hast fled, the clay 
Lies mute, nor bear'st thou aught of wealth, or might 

With thee that day. 
But, like a bird, unto thy nest away, 

Thou wilt take flight. 

Why for a land lament 

In which a lifetime spent 

Is as a hurried breath? 
Where splendour turns to gloom and honours show 

A faded wreath 
Where health and healing soon must sink beneath 

The fatal bow. 

242 



MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 

What seemeth good and fair 

Is often falsehood there. 

Gold melts like shifting sands, 
Thy hoarded riches pass to other men, 

And strangers' hands 
And what will thy treasured wealth and lands 

Avail thee then? 

Life is a vine, whose crown 

The reaper Death cuts down. 

His ever-watchful eyes 
Mark every step, until night's shadows fall, 

And swiftly flies 
The passing day, and ah! how distant lies 

The goal of all. 

Therefore, rebellious soul, 

Thy base desire control; 

With scantily given bread 
Content thyself, nor let they memory stray 

To splendours fled. 
But call to mind affliction's weight and dread 

The judgment day. 

Prostrate and humbled go, 

Like to the dove laid low. 

Remember evermore 
The peace of heaven, the Lord's eternal rest. 

When burdened sore 
With sorrow's load, at every step implore 

His succour bless'd. 

Before God's mercy-seat 

His pardoning love entreat. 

Make pure thy thoughts from sin. 
And bring a contrite heart as sacrifice 

His grace to win — 
Then wm'11 His angels come and lead thee in 

To Paradise. Solomon Ibn Gabirol. 

(Translated by Alice Lucas.) 

243 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Rabbi Don Santob, or Santo 

T^HIS poet, a Jew by birth, flourished about 1360. 
*" His name is not known, but he seems to have re- 
ceived the title of Santo by way of honor; "perhaps," 
says Sanchez, ''for his moral virtues and his learning." 
He is supposed to have been either a native or a resi- 
dent of Carrion. 

The Dance of Death 

Here begins the general dance, in which It is shown 
how Death gives advice to all, that they should take 
due account of the brevity of life, and not to value 
it more highly than it deserves; and this he orders 
and requires, that they see and hear attentively what 
wise preachers tell them and warn them from day 
to day, giving them good and wholesome counsel that 
they labor in doing good works to obtain pardon for 
their sins. 

Lo! I am Death! With aim as sure as steady, 

All beings that are and shall be I draw near me. 
I call thee, — I require thee, man, be ready ! 

Why build upon this fragile life? — Now hear me! 

Where is the power that does not own me, fear me ? 
Who can escape me, when I bend my bow? 
I pull the string, — thou liest in dust below, 

Smitten by the barb my ministering angels bear me. 

Come to the dance of Death! Come hither, even 

The last, the lowliest, — of all rank and station! 
Who will not come shall be by scourges driven: 

I hold no parley with disinclination. 

List to yon friar who preaches of salvation, 
And hie ye to your penitential post! 
For who delays, — who lingers, — he Is lost, 

And handed o'er to hopeless reprobation. ' 



244 



MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 

I to my dance — my mortal dance — have brought 

Two nymphs, all bright in beauty and in bloom. 
They listened, fear-struck, to my songs, methought; 

And truly, songs like mine are tinged with gloom. 

But neither roseate hues nor flowers' perfume 
Will now avail them, — nor the thousand charms 
Of worldly vanity; — they fill my arms, — 

They are my brides, — their bridal bed the tomb. 
• • • • . 

And since 'tis certain, then, that we must die, — 
No hope, no chance, no prospect of redress, — 

Be it our constant aim unswervingly 

To tread God's narrow path of holiness: 
For He is first, last, midst. O, let us press 

Onwards! and when Death's monitory glance 

Shall summon us to join his mortal dance. 

Even then shall hope and joy our footsteps bless. 



Song of the Spanish Jews 

"It was in Spain that the golden age of the Jews 
shone with the brightest and most enduring splendour. 

"In emulation of their Moslemite brethren, they 
began to cultivate their long disused and neglected 
poetry; the harp of Judah was heard to sound again, 
though with something of a foreign tone." — Milmans 
History of the Jews. 

/^H, dark is the spirit that loves not the land 

^^^ Whose breezes his brow have in infancy fann'd ; 

That feels not his bosom responsively thrill 

To the voice of her forest the gush of her rill. 

Who hails not the flowers that bloom on his way, 
As blessings there scattered his love to repay; 
Who loves not to wander o'er mountain and vale, 
Where echoes the voice of the loud rushing gale, 

245 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Who treads not with awe where his ancestors lie; 
As their spirits around him are hovering nigh. 
Who seek not to cherish the flowers that bloom, 
Amid the fresh herbs that o'ershadow the tomb. 

Oh, cold Is such spirit; and yet colder still 
The heart that for Spain does not gratefully thrill ; 
The land, which the foot of the weary had pressed, 
Where the exile and wand'rer found blessing and rest. 

On the face of the earth our doom was to roam, 
To meet not a brother, to find not a home, 
But Spain has the exile and homeless received, 
And we feel not of country so darkly bereaved. 

Home of the exile ! oh ne'er will we leave th^e. 
As mother to orphan, fair land we now greet thee, 
Sweet peace and rejoicing may dwell in thy bowers, 
For even as Judah, fair land thou art ours. 

Oh, dearest and brightest! the homeless do bless thee, 
From ages to ages they yearn to possess thee. 
In life and in death they cling to thy breast. 
And seek not and wish not a lovelier rest. 

Grace Aguilar. 



I Will Not Have You Think Me Less 

T WILL not have you think me less 

Than others of my faith, 
Who live on a generous king's largess, 
Forsworn at every breath. 

And if you deem my teachings true. 

Reject them not with hate. 
Because a minstrel sings to you 
•---'Who's not of knight's estate. 

246 



MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 

The fragrant, waving reed grows tall 

From feeble root and thin, 
And uncouth worms that lowly crawl 

Most lustrous silk do spin. 

Because beside a thorn it grows, 

The rose is not less fair; 
Though vine from gnarled branches flows, 

'Tis sweet beyond compare. 

The goshawk, know, can soar on high, 

Yet low he nests his brood, 
A Jew true precepts doth apply, 

Are they therefore less good? 

Some Jews there are with slavish mind 

Who fear, are mute, and meek. 
My soul to truth is so inclined 

That all I feel I speak. 

There often comes a meaning home 
Through simple verse and plain. 

While in the heavy, bulky tome 
We find of truth no grain. 

Full oft a man with furrowed front, 
Whom grief hath rendered grave. 

Whose views of life are honest, blunt. 
Both fool is called and knave. 

Santob de Carrion. 



Why Should I Wander Sadly? 

"YJT/HY should I wander sadly, 

'^ My harp within my hand, 
O'er mountain, hill, and valley? 
What praise do I command? 

247 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Full well they know the singer 

Belongs to race accursed ; 
Sweet Minne doth no longer 

Reward me as at first. 

Be silent, then, my lyre. 

We sing 'fore lords in vain, 

I'll leave the minstrels' choir, 
And roam a Jew again. 

My stafif and hat I'll grasp, then, 
And on my breast full low. 

By Jewish custom olden 

My grizzled beard shall grow. 

My days I'll pass In quiet, — 
Those left to me on earth — 

Nor sing for those who not yet 
Have learned a poet's worth. 

SUSSKIND VON TrIMBERG. 



Sonnet 

IVyf Y sweet gazelle ! From thy bewitching eyes 
^^^ A glance thrills all my soul with wild delight, 

Unfathomed depths beam forth a world so bright — 
With rays of sun its sparkling splendor vies — 
One look within a mortal defies. 

Thy lips, the gates where through dawn wings its 
flight, 

Adorn a face suffused with royal light. 
Whose radiance puts to shame the vaulted skies. 
Two brilliant stars are they from heaven sent — 

Their charm I cannot otherwise explain — 
By God but for a little instant lent. 

Who gracious doth their lustrous glory deign, 
To teach those on pursuit of beauty bent, 

Beside those eyes all other beauty's vain. 

Immanuel ben Solomon of Rome. 

248 



MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 

Sonnet 

|V4Y soul surcharged with grief now loud com- 

^'■■' plains, 

And fears upon my spirit heavily weigh, 

"Thy poem we have heard," the people say, 

"Who like to thee can sing melodious strains?" 

"They're naught but sparks," outspeaks my soul in 

chains, 
"Struck from my life by torture every day. 
But now all perfume's fled — no more my lay 
Shall rise; for, fear of shame my song restrains." 
A woman's fancies lightly roam, and weave 
Themselves Into a fairy web. Should I 
Refrain ? Ah ! soon enough this pleasure, too, 
Will flee ! Verily I cannot conceive 
Why I'm extolled. For woman 'tis to ply 
The spinning wheel — then to herself she's true. 

Rachel Morpurgo. 



Sonnet 

/^ LORD, Thou know'st my inmost hope and 
^^ thought. 

Thou know'st whene'er before Thy judgment throne 
I shed salt tears, and uttered many a moan. 
'Twas not for vanities that I besought. 
O turn on me Thy look with mercy fraught, 
And see how envious malice makes me groan! 
The pall upon my heart by error thrown, 
Remove; Illume me with Thy radiant thought. 
At truth let not the wicked scorner mock, 
O Thou, that breath'dst in me a spark divine. 
The lying tongue's deceit with silence blight, 
Protect me from its venom, Thou, my Rock, 
And show the spiteful sland'rer by this sign 
That Thou dost shield me with Thy endless might. 

Sara Copia Sullam. 

249 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Friendship 



"W/HAT treasure greater than a friend j 

" Who close to us hath grown ? fl 

i 



Bh'nd fate no bitt'rer lot can send 
Than bid us walk alone. 



For solitude doth cause a dearth 

Of fruitful, blessed thought, 
The wise would pray to leave this earth, 

If none their friendship sought. 

Yet sad though loneliness may be, 

That friendship surely shun 
That feigns to love, and inwardly 

Betrays affections won. 

Santob de Carrion. 



250 



IV 
THE JEWISH YEAR 



The Spirit of the Sabbath 

"Come my beloved to meet the bride, the presence 
of the Sabbath let us receive." — Jewish Prayer 
Book. 

/^N evening's bosom snowy cloudlets weave, 

^-"^ Light fantasies the veil of night shall hide. 

The wraiths of spectral cares that softly glide 

In silentness, and plaintive sighs that heave 

From those who have no strength to loudly grieve, 

Are hushed; and in an ecstasy of pride, 

The soul of rest and stillness glorified. 

Welcome the beauty of the Sabbath Eve! 

Peace folds the soul, as petals fold a flower. 

Hushed in sweet slumbers with night's darkened spell, 

The bride has entered in her lovely bower, 

Where love entrenched in radiance doth dwell. 

And decked in sweetness, purity and truth. 

We greet her in her everlasting youth. 

Isidore G. Ascher. 



Princess Sabbath 

IN Arabia's book of fable 
* We behold enchanted princes 
Who at times their form recover, 
Fair as first they were created. 

The uncouth and shaggy monster 
Has again a king for father; 
Pipes his amorous ditties sweetly 
On the flute in jewelled raiment. 

Yet the respite from enchantment 
Is but brief, and, without warning, 
Lo! we see his Royal Highness 
Shuffled back into a monster. 

253 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Of a prince by fate thus treated 
Is my song. His name is Israel, 
And a witch's spell has changed him 
To the likeness of a dog. 

As a dog, with dog's ideas. 
All the week, a cur, he noses ^v.^tri'^v) V<^ 
Through life's filthy mire and sweepings, 
Butt of mocking city Arabs; 

But on every Friday evening, 
On a sudden, in the twilight, 
The enchantment weakens, ceases, 
And the dog once more is human. 

And his father's halls he enters 
As a man, with man's emotions, 
Head and heart alike uplifted, 
Clad in pure and festal raiment. 

"Be ye greeted, halls beloved. 
Of my high and royal father! 
Lo! I kiss your holy door-posts, 
Tents of Jacob, with my mouth!" 

Through the house there passes strangely 
A mysterious stir and whisper. 
And the hidden master's breathing 
Shudders weirdly through the silence. 

Silence! save for one, the steward 
(Vulgo, synagogue attendant) 
Springing up and down, and busy 
With the lamps that he is lighting. 

Golden lights of consolation. 

How they sparkle, how they glimmer! 

Proudly flame the candles also 

On the rails of the Almemor. 

254 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

By the shrine wherein the Thora 
Is preserved, and which is curtained 
By a costly silken hanging, 
Whereon precious stones are gleaming. 

There, beside the desk already 
Stands the synagogue precentor. 
Small and spruce, his mantle black 
With an air coquettish shouldering; 

And, to show how white his hand is, 
At his neck he works — forefinger 
Oddly pressed against his temple, 
And the thumb against his throat. 

To himself he trills and murmurs, 
Till at last his voice he raises ; 
Till he sings with joy resounding, 
^'Lecho dodi likrath kallah!" 

"Lecho dodi likrath kallah — 
Come, beloved one, the bride 
Waits already to uncover 
To thine eyes her blushing face!'* 

The composer of this poem, 
Of this pretty marriage song, 
Is the famous minnesinger, 
Don Jehudah ben Halevy. 

It was writ by him in honour 
Of the wedding of Prince Israel 
And the gentle Princess Sabbath, 
Whom they call the silent princess. 

Pearl and flower of all beauty 
Is the princess — not more lovely 
Was the famous Queen of Sheba, 
Bosom friend of Solomon, 

255 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Who, Bas Bleu of Ethiopia, 
Sought by wit to shine and dazzle, 
And became at length fatiguing 
With her very clever riddles. 

Princess Sabbath, rest incarnate, 
Held in hearty detestation 
Every form of witty warfare 
And of intellectual combat. 

She abhorred with equal loathing 
Loud declamatory passion — 
Pathos ranting round and storming 
With dishevelled hair and streaming. 

In her cap the silent princess 
Hides her modest, braided tresses, 
Like the meek gazelle she gazes, 
Blooms as slender as the myrtle. 

She denies her lover nothing 
Save the smoking of tobacco; 
''Dearest, smoking is forbidden, 
For to-day it is the Sabbath. 

"But at noon, as compensation. 
There shall steam for thee a dish 
That in very truth divine is — 
Thou shalt eat to-day of schalet! 

"Schalet, ray of light immortal! 
Schalet, daughter of Elysium!" 
So had Schiller's song resounded. 
Had he ever tasted schalet. 

For this schalet is the very 
Food of heaven, which, on Sinai, 
God Himself instructed Moses 
In the secret of preparing, 

256 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

At the time He also taught him 
And revealed in flames of lightning 
All the doctrines good and pious, 
And the holy Ten Commandments. 

Yes, this schalet's pure ambrosia 
Of the true and only God: 
Paradisal bread of rapture; 
And, with such a food compared, 

The ambrosia of the pagan, 
False divinities of Greece, 
Who were devils 'neath disguises, 
Is the merest devils' offal. 

When the prince enjoys the dainty, 
Glovi^ his eyes as if transfigured, 
And his waistcoat he unbuttons; 
Smiling blissfully he murmurs, 

"Are not these the waves of Jordan 
That I hear — the flowing fountains 
In the palmy vale of Beth-el, 
Where the camels lie at rest? 

"Are not these the sheep-bells ringing 
Of the fat and thriving wethers 
That the shepherd drives at evening 
Down Mount Gilead from the pastures?" 

But the lovely day flits onward. 
And with long, swift legs of shadow 
Comes the evil hour of magic — 
And the prince begins to sigh; 

Seems to feel the icy fingers 
Of a witch upon his heart ; 
Shudders, fearful of the canine 
Metamorphosis that waits him. 

257 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Then the princess hands her golden 
Box of spikenard to her lover, 
Who inhales it, fain to revel 
Once again in pleasant odours. 

And the princess tastes and offers 
Next the cup of parting also — 
And he drinks in haste, till only- 
Drops a few are in the goblet. 

These he sprinkles on the table, 
Then he takes a little wax-light, 
And he dips it in the moisture 
Till it crackles and is quenched. 

Heinrich Heine. 
(Translated by Margaret Armour.) 



The Sabbath Lamp 

(Suggested by a picture painted by S. A. Hart, R.A.) 

CHINE, Sabbath Lamp, oh shine with tender ray! 

Pierce the soft wavelets of the fading light; 
Speed the faint footsteps of the waning day, 
And greet the shadows of the coming night. 

Cast thy rays upward, — cleave the darkening air, 
And lift a stream of brilliant light on high ; 

Shine on the wings of Faith, and may they bear 
The wavering wandering heart from earth to sky I 

Fling thy beams forward, — -may their radiance meet 
The welcome presence of the heaven-sent guest; 

Illume the path she treads with glistening feet; 
The Sabbath Bride of Israel's panting breast! 

Cast thy gleams backward — Six days' toils are told ; 

Soothe with thy smile the wearied breast and brain J 
And may thy glittering lustre change to gold 

Each seventh link in life's dull iron chain. 

258 



I 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Shed thy rays downward — may their sacred ray 
On life's rough road of earthly travel shine; 

And strew the crags that fret the rugged way 

With sparkling gems which breathe a light divine! 

Cast thy beams inward — may they pierce the fold 
That each one gathers round his secret breast; 

Shew forth the idol in its godless mould, 
That we may crush it in our bosom's nest! 

Shed thy rays outward, — lest at last we grow, 
Centered in self — and life's best purpose mock; 

And dwell, unmindful of a brother's woe, 

Like callous limpet on the weed-bound rock. 

Cast thy beams homeward — may they sweetly bear 
The smiles of household peace where'er they shine; 

Test of an earthly mother's tender care, 
Type of the heavenly Father's love divine. 

Shine near and far — in every Jewish home — 
In every clime — on every distant shore, — 

Where in the stranger land the loved ones roam : 
Oh ! let us greet them in thy gleams once more ! 

Ah, shine afar ! and may thy waves of light 
Bring near the absent dear ones far away, 

Show us our loved ones in our dreams to-night, — 
Our dead who rest in Heaven's bright Sabbath day! 

For Faith, like Light, sheds beams on every side; 

Faith shares with Light its radiating power. 
Then shine, oh Lamp! and greet the Sabbath bride. 

And shine, oh Faith ! and bless the Sabbath hour. 

Shine on the Past — and, as the raindrops gleam 
With rainbow tints where'er the sunbeams rest, 

So may our tears grow bright beneath thy beam, 
And every grief be sanctified and blest, 

259 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Shine on the Present — may thy beacon-light 

Beam on life's sea where mists and tempests reign; 

And may its radiance guide our course aright, 
And fling its silvery track across the main. 

Shine on the Future — lead these hearts of ours 
Far beyond home and clime and native strand, 

Light up the East — gleam on yon ruined towers; 
And rend the gloom that veils our long-lost land. 

Shine Sabbath Lamp, with ray of heavenly birth, 
Emblem of Faith and Hope in Mercy given; 

Gleam on the rude, dark path we tread on earth. 
And light our souls to find the road to Heaven. 

Grace Aguilar. 



Blessing the Lights 

CILVER candlesticks that beam, 

^ Holding candles ranged in line. 

Stand on snowy tablecloth. 

Near the Sabbath bread and wine. 

Lovingly my mother lights 

Six white candles, one for each 

Dear and loving, living child. 
When the twilight hours reach 

Bringing In the Sabbath bride; 

And In festive robes arrayed. 
Spreads her palms before her eyes 

Moistened by the tears that strayed; 

And, like beamings of Shekinah, 
Some ethereal beauty plays 

Round her lips as, nodding, she 
In a plaintive murmur prays, 

260 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

By the candle's light and flame; 

And her face begins to shine, 
And her brow with grace is haloed 

And transfigured, calm, divine 

Looks she, chanting soft and low; 

"Lord of life and joy and light, 
Man whose flame of life is short 

Makes his light all clear and bright 

"May my children, plants of Zion, 
Love Thee, doing Thy behest, 

Fed on manna of the Bible, 

Nourished by the Torah's breast. 

"Make us, scions of the prophets, 

Happy in a life lived whole; 
Lived in honor, labor, love. 

Lived in holiness of soul. 

"I, Thy handmaid, what am I? 

But to all you deign your grace; 
Make my children little lights. 

Lighting well their little place. 

"Make us, seed of Abraham, 

Love-flames burning far and free; 

Lights of love and lights of virtue, 
Shining, beaming, God, for Thee." 

Alter Abelson. 



Song for Friday Night 

nTHOU beautiful Sabbath, thou sanctified day, 
'■• That chasest our cares and our sorrows away, 
O come with good fortune, with joy and with peace, 
To the homes of thy pious, their bliss to increase ! 

261 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

In honour of thee are the tables decked white; 
From the clear candelabra shines many a light; 
All men In the finest of garments are dress'd, 
As far as his purse, each hath got him the best. 

For as soon as the Sabbath-hat 's put on the head, 
New feelings are born and old feelings are dead ; 
Yes, suddenly vanish black care and grim sorrow, 
None troubles concerning the things of tomorrow. 

New heavenly powers are given to each; 

Of everyday matters now hush'd Is all speech ; 

At rest are all hands that have toil'd with much pain; 

Now peace and tranquillity everywhere reign. 

Not the choicest of wines at a banqueting board 
Can ever such exquisite pleasure afiEord 
As the Friday-night meal when prepared with due zeal 
To honour thee, Sabbath, thou day of sweet rest! 

With thy angels attending thee, one at each side, 
Come on Friday betimes In pure homes to abide, 
In the homes of the faithful that shine in their bliss, 
Like souls from a world which Is better than this! 

One Angel, the good one, Is at thy right hand, 
At thy left doth the other, the bad Angel, stand ; 
Compell'd 'gainst his wnll to say "Amen," and bless 
With the blessing he hears the good Angel express: 

That when Sabbath, dear Sabbath, thou comest again, 
We may lustily w^elcome thee, free from all pain. 
In the fear of the Lord, and with joy In our heart. 
And again keep thee holy till thou shalt depart! 

Then come with good fortune, with joy and with 

peace. 
To the homes of thy pious, their bliss to Increase k' 
Already we've now been awaiting thee long, .': 
All eager to greet thee with praise and with song. 

Isidore Myers. 

262 



THE JEWISH YEAR 



The Hebrew^s Friday Night 

<</^OME, my beloved, to meet the Bride; the Face 
of the Sabbath let us welcome." 

Sweet Sabbath-Bride, the Hebrew's theme of praise, 

Celestial maiden with the starry eyes, 
Around thine head a sacred nimbus plays, 

Thy smile is soft as lucent summer skies, 

Before thy purity all evil dies, 
In wedding-robe of stainless sunshine drest, 

Thou dawnest on Life's darkness and it dies; 
Thy bridal-wreath is lilies Heaven-blest, 
Thy dowry Peace and Love and Holiness and Rest. 

For in thy Presence he forgets a while 

The gloom and discord of man's mortal years, 

To seek the Light that streameth from thy Face, 
To list thy tender lullaby, which cheers 
His soul and lies like music on his ears. 

His very sorrows with soft splendor shine, 
Transfigured by a mist of sacred tears; 

He drinks thy gently offered Anodyne, 

And feels himself absorbed into the Peace divine. 

The Father from the Synagog returns 
(A singing-bird is nestling at his heart). 

And from without the festive light discerns 

Which tells his faithful wife has done her part 
To welcome Sabbath with domestic art. - 

He enters and perceives the picture true, 

And tears unbidden from his eyelids start, 

As Paradise thus opens on his view. 

And then he smiles and thanks his God he is a Jew. 

For "Friday-night" is written on his home 
In fair, white characters; his wife has spread 

The snowy Sabbath-cloth ; the Hebrew tome, 
The flask and cup arc at the table's head, 

263 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

There's Sabbath magic in the very bread, 
And royal fare the humble dishes seem ; 

A holy light the Sabbath candles shed, 
Around his children's shining faces beam, 
He feels the strife of every day a far-off dream. 

His buxom wife he kisses, then he lays 

Upon each child's young head two loving hands 
Of benediction, so in after-days. 

When they shall be afar in other lands. 

They shall be knit to God and home by bands ' 
Of sacred memory. And then he makes 

The blessing o'er the wine, and while each stands, 
The quaintly convoluted bread he breaks. 
Which tastes to all to-night more sweet than honeyed 
cakes. 

And now they eat the Sabbath meal with laugh 
And jest and gossip till all fun must cease. 

While Father chants the Grace, all singing half. 
And then the Sabbath hymns of Love and Peace 
And Hope from alien lands to find release. 

No evil can this night its head uprear, 

Earth's joys loom larger and its ills decrease; 

To-night of ghosts the youngest has no fear — 

Does not his guardian Sabbath-Angel hover near? 

So in a thousand squalid Ghettoes penned. 

Engirt yet undismayed by perils vast, 
The Jew in hymns that marked his faith would spend 

This night and dream of all his glorious Past 

And wait the splendors by his seers forecast. 
And so while medieval creeds at strife 

With nature die, the Jew's ideals last. 
The simple love of home and child and wife. 
The sweet humanities which make our higher life. 

Anonymous. 



264 



THE JEWISH YEAR 



Sabbath Hymn 

/^OME forth, my friend, the bride to meet, 
^^ Come, O my friend, the Sabbath greet. 

"Observe ye" and "remember" still 
The Sabbath — thus His holy will 
God in one utterance did proclaim. 
The Lord is One, and One His name 
To Him renown and praise and fame. 

Come forth, my friend, the bride to meet, 
Come, O my friend, the Sabbath greet. 

Greet we the Sabbath at our door, 

Well-spring of blessing evermore 

With everlasting gladness fraught, 

Of old ordained, divinely taught, 

Last in creation, first in thought. 

Come forth, my friend, the bride to meet, ~ 
Come, O my friend, the Sabbath greet. 

Arouse thyself, awake and shine, 

For lo! it comes, the light divine; 

Give forth a song and over thee 

The glory of the Lord shall be 

Revealed in beauty speedily. 

Come forth, my friend, the bride to meet, 
Come, O my friend, the Sabbath greet. 

Crown of thy husband come in peace. 

Come, bidding toil and trouble cease. 

With joy and cheerfulness abide 

Among thy people true and tried. 

Thy faithful people — come O bride. 

Come forth, my friend, the bride to meet, 
Come, O my friend, the Sabbath greet. 

Solomon Alkabiz. 
265 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Come, My Beloved 

/^OME, my beloved, to meet the Bride 
^^ With joy, at Sabbath even-tide; 
Her presence then will surely dower 
Your home with peace at Sabbath hour. 

To meet the Bride, beloved, come. 
Greet her with welcome in your home, 
The doors of Jewish faith ope wide, 
And greet with love the Sabbath bride. 

Come, my beloved, the Bride to meet — 
Hasten thy steps, the Bride to greet; 
But not to every passing show 
To meet her, let thy footsteps go. 

The presence of the Sabbath Bride 
Seek thou, by happy fireside. 
Where young and old their voices blend 
And Sabbath songs from both ascend. 

But, see, who comes with mien so sad ? 
The Sabbath Bride, in mourning clad! 
The beloved fails the Bride to meet, 
And Sabbath eve again to greet. 

Sadly she goes from door to door — 
To her they're shut forevermore! 
For her no festal board is spread, 
With Sabbath cup and blessing bread. 

But, Bride, thou art not quite bereft — 
Of those who loved thee, some are left 
Who gladly give at eventide 
A welcome to the Sabbath Bride. 

Then thither let thy footsteps roam. 
Your holy presence fill their home, 
Where, all united, side by side. 
With joy receive the Sabbath Bride. 

M. M. 

266 



THE JEWISH YEAR 



The Sabbath Eve 

IN quaint old Talmud's pages, 
"* Where speak the Jewish sages, 
I found this pearl tonight: 
Behold it, fair and white! 

For, as the rabbins say, . j 

Two angels guard the way 

Of him on Sabbath eve 
Who turns his homeward feet 
Off through the busy street, 

The synagogue to leave. 
And if the lamps are lit. 
If there the maidens sit 
With the mother by their side; 
If there the youths abide 
At the quiet eventide — 
Then speaks the spirit blest — 
"Here let all blessing rest! 
May every Sabbath be 
Like this one unto thee ; 
Peace to this dwelling, peace!" 
And he of little ease. 
The restless demon, then, 
Mutters a rough "Amen!" 

But If the darkness there 
Obscures the evening prayer; 
If matron and If maid 
Show worldliness displayed ; 
And If the youths have place 
In regions low and base — 
Then sneers the evil one: 
"Be all thy blessings gone! 
Make every Sabbath be 
Like this one unto me!" 

267 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And, with his head bent low, 
The other in his woe, 
Must weep and utter then 
His sorrowful, "Amen!" 

Samuel Augustus Willoughby Duffield. 



Friday Night 

pRIDAY NIGHT! come draw the curtam; 
* I am weary with the week; 

Sit before the grate-fire with me. 

And together let us speak; 
Put aside your books and papers — 

It is neither night nor day, 
And the Sabbath morn approaches; 

Put your endless toil away. 

Watch the fire-light — how it flickers! 

See the light and shadow play 
From the fender to the carpet 

And across the curtain gay; 
See its gentle fairy-fingers 

Touch the pictures on the wall, 
Giving them a life-like beauty 

Lending grace to each and all. 

Over yonder hangs a picture 

Sheltered from the dancing gleam; 
See its dim, uncertain outlines, 

Like the mem'ry of a dream ; 
Watch the light dispel the shadows. 

And observe the lovely face; 
See, it seems the Sabbath Spirit, 

Cloth'd with pure and tender grace; 

Calling to your mind the missing 

Angels of our household band. 
Who, on bygone Sabbath evenings. 

Sat beside us, hand In hand ; 

268 



i 

I 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Bringing back our hopes and longings, 
Crowning them with light divine, 

Showing us our vain endeavors, 
Softened by the glow of time; 

Speaking of its own sweet image, 

As our fathers knew it best — 
Beautiful in true thanksgiving 

For the day of peace and rest; 
Teaching us to break the shadows 

Hovering o'er its lov'd face, 
With the glowing light of fervor 

Kindled by our ancient race. 

But I know I'm only dreaming, 

'Tis a picture — nothing more — 
Image of some lovely maiden 

Famed in song or fairy lore; 
Drop the curtain, watch the fire 

Till the shadows flee the light; 
Rest awhile within its gleaming. 

On this peaceful Sabbath night. 

Miriam Del Banco. 



Friday Night 

'T'HE majesty of sunset in the west 

Has glorified the ebbing hours of day! 

The world is hushed as if its heart would pray ! 
In busy, Jewish homes there enters rest; 
The weary soul no longer is depressed, 

A Sabbath calm has come, the children stray 

And prattle every sombre care away. 
Our Friday night has made our portals blest ! 

The lamps are lit in solemn joy and prayer, 
And curtains folded close to hide the night, 
A glow of love in every Sabbath light! 

269 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Unspoken blessings fill the chastened air, 

And happiness pursues time's gentle flight, 
And over all God's blessings everywhere! 

Isidore G. Ascher. 

Sabbath Hymn 

r^ESCEND, descend, O Sabbath Princess, 
With rays of Shechinah in your eyes, 
Descend and bring us peaceful tidings,' 

From yonder gently dreaming skies! 
Behold, in darkness, and in sadness 

We wander here, we climb, we grope. 
Descend and give us Faith and Gladness, 

Descend and give us Light and Hope! 

Descend, descend, O Sabbath Princess, 

For we are weary here and blind. 
Descend and lighten all the burdens 

Of dreary souls and faithless mind. 
The paths of life are rough and thorny. 

Our feet are bleeding, bleeding sore, 
Descend and bring us Heaven's promise. 

And Sabbath peace for evermore. 

Aaron Cohen. 

The Sabbath 

^JOT for us the Sabbath of the quiet streets. 

Sabbath peaceful o'er the world outspread, 
Felt where every man his neighbor greets. 

Heard in hush of many a slowly passing tread. 
Not the robe of silence for our holy day: — 

Noisy flock the worker and the player; 
Toil and stir and laughter of the way 

Surge around the steps that seek a place of prayer. 
Silent we while through the thronging street and mart 

Work-day clamor of the city rolls: — 
Cloistered inly, from the world apart. 

Ours 'tis to bear the Sabbath in our souls. 

Nina Davis. 

270 



THE JEWISH YEAR 



Sabbath 

HTHE Sabbath is here, and the heavens are beaming, 
'*' The Shekinah within us is brooding and dreaming, 
The soul found a form and a vestment of glory, 
And lo, a new Eden and Genesis story. 
Peace in an ecstasy came from the mountains. 
And opened the heavens, and bliss flows in fountains; 
The earth is a heaven, for man has ascended, 
And the soul and Shekinah in rapture are blended. 
The cherubim young-eyed around us are winging, 
My soul is among them ; to heaven 'tis clinging ; 
My soul is on wings now, a soul that is singing; 
Holiness, poesy won their sceptre. 
And man, man, himself, is a Biblical chapter. 
Our souls, we discovered — to-day we have two, 
The new life is old, and the old life is new; 
O, see how the spirit is wooing God's beauty, 
Rapt lovers are we. Our love is a duty, 
Songs of songs our souls are ; the heart is a canticle. 
In the sunshine of Sabbath, our joy is nigh frantical, 
Our transport of peace, it is sweet without cloyance, 
We are kings, we are queens, we are princes of joy- 

ance ; 
The swords are withdrawn and the goal is attained. 
One is all mankind, the Eden regained. 
The wine of the Kiddush pour forth to o'erflowing, 
And sing hymeneals, sing "Zmiroth" all glowing, 
For lo, it is Sabbath, the day of God's dreaming. 
The day of the perfect — a day without scheming — 
Our soul is in heaven, the Star of the Seven, 
Then sing like an angel at the gateway of heaven ! 

Alter Abelson. 



271 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



The Day of Rest 

pOME, O Sabbath day, and bring 
Peace and healing on thy wing, 

And to every troubled breast 

Speak of the divine behest: 
Thou shalt rest! 

Earthly longing, bid retire, 
Guard our passions' hurtful fire; 
To the wayward, sin-oppressed, 
Bring thou the divine behest; 
Thou shalt rest. 

Wipe from every cheek the tear: 
Banish care, and silence fear; 
All things working for the best, 
Teach us the divine behest. 
Thou shalt rest. 

GUSTAV GOTTHEIL. 



When Is the Jew in Paradise? 

"VY/HEN is the Jew in Paradise, 

Unchained from want and care 
When joy wings word of happiness 

And peace perfumes the air? 
When is the hour his heart is light 

And slow he is to grieve? 
The Jew has but one Paradise, 

And that is Friday eve. 

A noble queen, she comes to bless 

And bear his cares away. 
To every home this Princess comes 

And sanctifies the day. 

272 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

The rich and poor, both old and young, 

With gratitude receive 
The Sabbath Princess of the Jew, 

Their guest of Friday eve. 

Who sees her face, Shekinah-like, 

He lives a hundred years; 
His children's children bless her name 

And all that she endears; 
Her sacred, silent footsteps pass 

Through every heart and leave 
A thousand blessings for the joy 

She gives on Friday eve. 

Joseph Leiser. 



Sabbath Thoughts 

I BLESS Thee, Father, for the grace 
* Thou me this day hast given, 
Strengthening my soul to seek Thy face, 
And list the theme of heaven. 

I bless Thee that each vv^ork-day care 

Thy love hath lull'd to rest, 
And every thought w^hose w^ing has prayer 

Thine answering word hath blest. 

I bless Thee, Father! Those dark fears 

That linger'd round my heart, 
That called for murmurs, doubts and tears, 

Thy mercy bade depart. 

O Thou alone couldst send them hence 

On this blessed day of peace. 
And with Thy spirit's pure incense 

Bid work-day turmoil cease. 

Grace Aguilar. 



273 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

God of the World 

{A Sabbath Hymn) 

r^ OD of the World, eternity's sole Lord ! 

^^ King over kings, be now thy Name adored ! 

Blessed are we to whom thou dost accord 

This gladsome time thy wondrous ways to scan! 

God of the World, eternity's sole Lord! 
Early and late to thee our praises ring, 
Giver of life to every living thing! 
Beasts of the field, and birds that heavenward wing, 
Angelic hosts and all sons of man! 

God of the World, eternity's sole Lord! 
Though we on earth a thousand years should dwell, 
Too brief the space, thy marvels forth to tell. . 
Pride thou didst lower, all the weak who fell :, 
Thy hand raised up e'er since the world began! 

God of the World, eternity's sole Lord! 
Thine is the power, thine the glory be! 
When lions rage, O deign thy flock to free! 
Thine exiled sons O take once more to thee. 
Choose them again as in thine ancient plan! 

God of the World, eternity's sole Lord! 
Turn to thy city, Zion's sacred shrine! 
On yon fair mount again let beauty shine! 
There, happy throngs their voices shall combine. 
There, present joy all former ill shall ban! 

God of the World, eternity's sole Lord ! 
King over kings, be now thy Name adored! 

Israel Nagara. 
(Translated by Israel Abrahams.) 



274 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

A Sabbath of Rest 

{A Sabbath Hymn) 

TTHIS day is for Israel light and rejoicing, 
'■' A Sabbath of rest. 

Thou badest us standing assembled at Sinai 

That all the years through we should keep thy be- 
hest — 

To set out a table full-laden, to honor 
The Sabbath of rest. 

This day is for Israel light and rejoicing, 
A Sabbath of rest. 

Treasure of heart for the broken people, 
Gift of new soul for the souls distrest, 

Soother of sighs for the prisoned spirit — 
The Sabbath of rest. 

This day is for Israel light and rejoicing, 
A Sabbath of rest. 

When the work of the worlds in their wonder was 
finished, 

Thou madest this day to be holy and blest. 
And those heavy-laden find safety and stillness, 

A Sabbath of rest. 
This day is for Israel light and rejoicing, 

A Sabbath of rest. 

If I keep Thy command I inherit a kingdom, 

If I treasure the Sabbath I bring Thee the best — 

The noblest of offerings, the sweetest of incense — 
A Sabbath of rest. 

This day is for Israel light and rejoicing, 
A Sabbath of rest. 

Restore us our shrine — O remembir our ruin 
And save now and comfort the sorely opprest 

275 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Now sitting at Sabbath, all singing and praising 

The Sabbath of rest. 
This day is for Israel light and rejoicing, 

A Sabbath of rest. 

Attributed to Isaac Luria. 
(Translated by Nina Davis.) 



Hymn for the Conclusion of the Sabbath 

|V4AY He who sets the holy and profane 
*'^'' Apart, blot out our sins before His sight, 
And make our numbers as the sand again, 
And as the stars of night. 

The day declineth like the palm-tree's shade, 
I call on God, who leadeth me aright, 

The morning cometh — thus the watchman said — 
Although it now be night. 

Thy righteousness is like Mount Tabor vast; 

let my sins be wholly put to flight. 
Be they as yesterday, forever past. 

And as a watch at night. 

The peaceful season of my prayers is o'er. 

Would that again had rest my soul contrite. 
Weary am I of groaning evermore, 

1 melt in tears each night. 

Hear Thou my voice: be it not vainly sped. 
Open to me the gates of lofty height ; 

For with the evening dew is filled my head. 
My locks with drops of night. 

O grant me Thy redemption, while I pray. 
Be Thou entreated. Lord of power and might, 

In twilight, in the evening of the day. 
Yea, in the gloom of night. 

276 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Save me O Lord, my God I call on Thee! 

Make me to know the path of life aright, 
From sore and wasting sickness snatch Thou me, 

Lead me from day to night. 

We are like clay within Thy hand, O Lord, 
Forgive us all our sins both grave and light, 

And day shall unto day pour forth the word, 
And night declare to night. 

May He who sets the holy and profane 
Apart blot out our sins before His sight. 

And make our numbers as the sand again. 
And as the stars of night. 

Alice Lucas. 



The Twin Stars 

T TP above me star and star — 

Side by side like twins they are: 
Like the eyes of God they seem. 
As In Heaven's height they gleam. 

Like on Sabbath light and light, 
By my mother twinkle bright. 
Are there eyes that watch on high? 
Are there Sabbaths In the sky? 

If Almighty's eyes they be, 
Do they fondly look at me? 
But if lights for Sabbath-day — 
Who'll the Blessing o'er them say? 

Joel Blau. 
(Translated by the author from his Hebrew original.) 



277 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



The Twin Stars 

T^VVO stars are shining in the skies, 
"*■ Like twins they are united ; 
They look like God's own beaming eyes 
In distant darkness lighted. 

Like tapers on the Sabbath eve 

That mother kindles for us — 
Are there then Sabbaths up on high 

And real eyes gleaming o'er us? 

If God Almighty's eyes they are, 
Their soft glance is caressing; 
But if they're only Sabbath lamps, 
Who will pronounce the blessing? 

Joel Blau. 
(Translated by George Alexander Kohut.) 



The Sabbath Day — Kiddush and Habdalah 

"TTIOU sweet Sabbath of rest! Priceless gift from 

above ! 
Sacred symbol of faith-! Fruitful token of Love! 
Thrice welcome to him who hath cast off the coil 
Of wearisome, worrying, work-a-day toil ; 
Then in spirit ecstatic that thrills the heart's chord 
He exclaims: "Enter hither thou blest of the Lord." 
For prepared is my home as a fit dwelling-place 
For Heavenly Messengers, Angels of Grace, 
Who bear on their wings a new spirit benign 
That suffuses man's soul with afflatus divine; 
Thus bestowing upon him, for one day in seven. 
While a creature incarnate, a foretaste of Heaven. 

Anonymous. 



278 



THE JEWISH YEAR 



The Outgoing of Sabbath 

'T'HE shadows have taken the place of the sun, 
* The Sabbath is over, the glory is gone; 
With the gold of the sunset the new soul has flown, 
And God, He has shattered his heavenly throne 
And closed the effulgent gold gates of the sky, 
And the peace and the dream and the rapture all die; 
And childhood, the cherub, behold; it takes wing — 
A usurper has stolen the crown of the king! 
The shew-bread is eaten, no dainties are left, 
Of silver and china the table's bereft; 
The cover of damask is folded away. 
And the household is wrapped in dreariness gray. 
The poesy paused, and the weekday's dull prose 
Ascended the throne — the thorn for the rose! 
No candles are lighted for mothers to bless, 
The queen's jewels are hidden and changed .is her 

dress ; 
The Talith is folded, the incense suppressed. 
The golden-clasped Bible is laid in the chest; 
A fire is set to the drippings of wine, 
The Habdalah light quenched in the smouldering 

shine ; 
The last of the wine cup is drained by the j^oung, 
And Zemiroth, last strain of the Sabbath is sung; 
Unaccountable sadness, some shadowy pain 
On the mind and the memory lies like a stain; 
The heart with the tumult of being is tossed, 
The swords they are blazing, the Paradise 's lost! 
The shadow — the shadow replaces the sun. 
The last strain of Sabbath's Zemiroth is sung. 

Alter Abelson. 



279 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The Last Sabbath Light 

'T'HE last lone Sabbath candle sheds 

Its light as pure as Torah ; 
Three other wicks as black as night 
Lie spent in the Menorah. 

Without, the darkness gathers thick; 

The window panes are frozen — 
"Oh, God, let not for my last breath 

A pall of gloom be chosen. 

"On me a mother's tears were shed 

One evening of each seven; 
So gather up my dying flame 

And build a star in heaven." 

H, Rosenblatt. 
(Translated by Leah W. Leonard.) 



Selichoth 

VJT/HEN the pride of the rose is the image of sor- 

row, 
And the leaf that is yellow, steals joy from to-mor- 
row, 
When the night is the darkest, and the stars are the 

brightest, 
When sleep is the soundest, and dreams are the light- 
est, 
When warm is the home, and the heavens are chilly, 
And soft is the couch, and the rising is hilly. 
When the nests and the flowers are dreaming and 

sleeping, 
Who is it, with heaven is silently weeping 
As he dashes a dream from his dim drowsy eye. 
When searching for signs of the dawn in the sky? 
Who is it in shadows, a lantern is lighting, 
And fondles a hymnal, days darkened with blighting, 

280 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

The covers all frayed, and the folios yellowed ; 
Ah, ages with ages of tear stains here followed ; 
Who is it with hymnal o'er mountains is running, 
Through mists that are mazy, and w^ays that are cun- 
ning, 
O'er royalties fallen with manifold sighings, 
Where the spirit of autumn is silently crying. 
O'er Eden in ruins though dew-drops are falling. 
Where things that are widowed and orphaned are 

calling. 
Through bowers where silent the birds are in dream- 

ing . ^ ^ 
Of songs they w^ill sing when the heavens are beam- 
ing, 
O'er gems that are sparkling on bluebells and grasses, 
O'er flowers unseen, like a spirit who passes 
With the dew on his brow, the malign mists defy- 
ing? 
'Tis the Jew, who to God from the shadow^ is flying, 
And the night's shining soul with a star and a ray. 
It brothers the palmer to pray for the Day — 
The synagogue seeks he with lights all ashimmer. 
And finds there the daylight ere morning stars glim- 
mer ; 
Behold it is Selichoth — the storming of heaven 
With prayers and tears till w^ith woe it is riven ; 
And all the white hymns that are winged with white 

fire. 
And shod with the lightnings of souls that aspire. 
Make way through the seraphs that stand by His 

glory. 

And tell the Almighty sad Israel's story. 

O hearken how myriads of martyrs are crying, 

And ages w^ith ages in sorrows are vying! 

"O God, who of mercy made sceptre and station, 

Who keepeth His love to the thousandth generation, 

Long suffering heaven, forgiving transgression 

How long will we suffer? O, use your compassion. 

And banish injustice, and stay the oppressor, 

281 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Redeemer of Israel, sole intercessor! 

Make righteousness triumph, make love hold the scep- 
tre, 

O write Thy humaner and heavenlier chapter. 

Bring the Jew a new morn, bring the world a new 
morrow." 

So prayeth the Jew with the Genius of Sorrow! 

Alter Abelson. 



The Turn of the Years 

l_IOW may we know you, year of all? 
^ **• You come as others came. 
Night-sandaled, and your flying feet 
Set bells a-swing in every street — 
But you are dumb. 

We run, unwearied travelers 

Still on the upward slope 
Of life, to take your strong young hand, 
To search, to dare, to understand — 

Pilgrims of hope. 

You lead us on, you lead us up; 

We seek your avatar 
By fords of faith, the pass of tears, 
Peaks of delight — O rest of years. 

You take us far! 

And then you go. We hear your voice. 

We know your name at last, 
You w^ere the Future that we sought, 
And all the years may bring us naught 

But you, the Past. 

H. B. Friedlander. 



282 



THE JEWISH YEAR 



Into the Tomb of Ages Past 

I NTO the tomb of ages past 

Another year hath now been cast; 
Shall time, unheeded, take its flight, 
Nor leave one ray of moral light. 
That no man's pilgrimage may shine, 
And lead his soul to spheres divine? 

Ah, v^T^hich of us, if self-reviewed, 

Can boast unfailing rectitude? 

Who can declare his wayward will 

More prone to righteous deeds than ill? 

Or, in his retrospect of life. 

No traces find of passion's strife? 

A "still small voice," as time departs, 
Bids us inspect our secret hearts, 
Whose hidden depths too oft contain 
Some spot, which suffered to remain, 
Will (slight at first) by sad neglect 
The hue of vice at last reflect. 

With firm resolve your bosoms nerve 
The God of Truth alone to serve, 
Speech, thought, and act to regulate, 
By what His perfect laws dictate; 
Nor from His sanctuary stray. 
By worldly idols lured away. 

Peace to the house of Israel! 
May joy within it ever dwell! 
May sorrow on the opening year, 
Forgetting its accustomed tear. 
With smiles again fond kindred meet, 
With hopes revived the festal greet! 

Penina MoisE. 



283 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Ros h-H as hanah 

I STOOD, to-day, in a temple, 
Like one of the olden time ; 
And I dreamt a dream recalling 

The scenes in an Orient clime; 
And I felt, though somewhat strangely, 

An influence sublime! 

And before me hung the tablets 

Of the old Mosaic law; 
And the white-robed ancient Rabbis, 

Again, in that dream I saw; 
And the Hebrew psalms are chanted, 

Those hymns of praise and awe. 

And Israel's pristine splendor 

Arose, as in days of old. 
When each prophet after prophet 

His tale of promise told ; 
And the shades of by-gone glories 

Before my vision rolled. 

'Tis the New Year of the Hebrew; 

That ancient sacred day, 
When the memories of the ages, 

Awake from time's decay, 
And the hopes of future glories 

Are bright as the morning's ray! 

I beheld the chosen children 
Of the Great Eternal God, 

Still bend in mute submission 
To sorrow's painful rod ; 

Desirous still to follow 

The road by their fathers trod. 

And I asked if a faith so lofty 
Could be but a passing show? 

284 



1 

I 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

And the echoes of the by-gone 

Replied to my doubtings, "No." 
And I felt in their constant waiting, 
Their strength must nobler grow ! 

Joseph K. Foran. 



New Year 

A CROSS the life-path of our destiny 
''*' The tempests roll, 

Chill mists of doubt, dread harbingers of ill 

Assail the soul. 
Behind the veil that hides our future fate 

We stand in fear, 
While yet the shaft of day illumes the dawn 

Of this New Year. 
How far along the road of life shall be 

Our pilgrimage? 
Or has the book of our day's journey reached 

Its farthest page? 
Will star-crowned joy breathe in our ear sweet songs 

Of love and mirth, 
Or will sad grief with tear-filled eyes bow down 

Our hearts to earth? 

• • • • • 

Rest sure in Faith. Our times are in His hand. 

He guides our way, 
And guards our feet thro' darkness and thro' storm 

To perfect day. 

Florence Weisberg. 



S666 — New Year — IQO^ 

PROM old to new, with broadening sw^eep, 

The stream of life moves on ; 
And still its changing currents keep 
A changeless undertone. 

285 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

In prophet word and martyr faith, 

Visions of saint and seer, 
The poet's song, the hero's death — 

That undertone we hear. 

A sense we have of things unseen, 

Transcending thing of time ; 
We catch earth's broken chords between 

The everlasting chime. 

And h'ght breaks through the rifted haze 

In shining vistas broad ; 
We stand amid the eternal ways, 

Held by the hand of God. 

Jacob Klein. 



S ho far Echoes 

I'M but a child, and childish toys 
* Make up the sum of all my joys — 
But hark! while I am playing here 
A strange sound falls upon my ear, 
A note of music weird and wild. 
And lo, I am a changeling child — 
Where I stand with my childish feet, 
The centuries around me meet ; 
Though fresh the laughter in mine eyes, 
And on my lips, yet full of sighs 
The air about me, and I seem 
To live and move as in a dream. 
With that strange music rise and swell 
Old memories of what befel 
The children of my ancient race. 
The Shofar brings me face to face 
With all the martyrdoms of old 
That are in song and story told ; 
And as its tones ring shrill and loud. 
They make me feel both sad and proud 

286 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

That I am heir to all this woe, 

That all this glory I should know. 

And though I see strange children play 

With all the baubles of the day, 

I know I have more precious things; 

My gifts are from the King of kings, 

Whose angels He before me sent, 

And to them of His glory lent. 

The Shofar, hark! it tells my soul 

That as the ages onward roll, 

I more and more shall feel and hear 

The Spirit's speech around and near. 

My feet shall forward, upward press. 

Until a perfect wilderness 

Of flowers springs where'er I tread, 

And blessings rain down on my head. 

• • • • • 

So may the Shofar peal on peal, 

The heart unto itself reveal ; 

'Till thou again, O Israel, 

In "Jacob's goodly tents" shall dwell. 

Annette Kohn. 



Kol Nidre 

IN lonely hours of thought I long 

To hear again that sacred song. 
So solemn, beautiful and soft. 
Which years ago I heard so oft! 

No song of war or jilted love. 
Nor of the moon and stars above; 
A wandering tribe without a goal 
Asks pardon from Its very soul. 

Kol Nidre, masterpiece of art, 
Thou outcry of a weary heart. 
Sublime, seraphic, seems to me 
The sweetness of thy melody. 

287 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

No other song Is half so rich, 
And none may ever so bewitch 
Like thee — For magic is thy spell 
O hymn of Israel. 

M. OsiAS. 



Kol Nidre 

I O ! above the mourntul chanting, 
Rise the fuller-sounded wailings 
Of the soul's most solemn anthem. 
Hark! the strains of deep Kol Nidre — 
Saddest music ever mortal 
Taught his lips to hymn or sound! 

Not the heart of one lone mortal 

Told his anguish in that strain ; 

All the sorrow, pain, and struggles 

Of a people in despair, 

Gathered from the vale of weeping, 

Through the ages of distress. 

'Tis a mighty cry of beings 

Held in bondage and affliction ; 

All the wailing and lamenting 

Of a homeless people, roaming 

O'er the plains and scattered hamlets 

Of a world without a refuge, 

All the sorrows, trials, bereavements,— 

Loss of country, home, and people, — 

In one mighty strain uniting, 

Chant for every age Its wail ; 

Make the suffering years re-echo 

With the wounds and pains of yore; 

Give a voice to every martyr 

Ever hushed to death by pain, 

Every smothered shriek of laughter 

Burned upon the fagot's bier; 

Bring the wander-years and exile, 

288 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Persecution's harsh assailment, 

Ghetto misery and hounding, 

To the ears of men to-day; 

Link the dark and dreary ages 

With the brighter future's glow; 

Weave the past and hopeful present; 

Bind the living with the sleeping, 

Dust unto the dust confessing. 

Even with the dead uniting, 

When the soul would join with God. 

• • • • • 

Slowly creep the muffled murmurs. 
As the leaves and flowers conspiring, 
Steal a breeze from summer's chamber, 
Hum and mumble as they stroke it. 
Smooth, caress, and gently coy it. 
So this murmur spreads the voices 
Of the praying synagogue, 
As each lip repeats the sinning 
Of his selfish, godless living, 
By each mutter low recounting 
Every single sin and crime — 
How he falsified his neighbor. 
Made a stumbling-block for blindness, 
Cursed the deaf, unstaid the cripple, 
Played his son and daughter wrong, 
Tattled of his wife's behavior, 
Made his father's age a load. 
Spoke belittling of his mother, 
Took advantage of the stupid. 
Made the hungry buy their bread. 
Turned the needy from his threshold. 
Clothed the naked with his bareness. 
Shut the stranger from his fold. 
Never begged forgiveness, pardon. 
For a wrong aimed at a foe, 
Never weighed the love or mercy 
Of the Father of the world. 
Low the lips are now repenting; 

289 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Every mutter is a sob 
Ebbing from the font of being; 
Conscience speaks in lowest accents, 
Lest the voice cry out to men. 

Who has ever heard Kol Nidre 
Gushing from the breast of man, 
Rising, falling, as the ocean 
Lifts the waves in joy or fear. 
From Time's ocean has it risen; 
Every age has lent a murmur, 
Every cycle built a wall ; 
Every sorrow ever dwelling 
In the tortured heart of man, 
Tears and sighs together swelling. 
Answer for the pangs of ages. 
'Tis the voice of countless pilgrims. 
Sons of Jacob, with a cry, 
Moaning, sighing, grieving, wailing. 
Answering in thousand voices 
Fate and destiny of man, 
Winning soul a consolation 
For their sad allotment's creed; 
Wander-song of homeless traveller, 
Outcast from the ranks of men; 
Echoes from the throes of mortals. 
Questioning the ways of God; 
Song hummed by the lonely desert. 
Prompted by the heart of night. 
Lisped across the sandy borders 
By the desert's trailing wind ; 
Hymn of midnight and the silence, 
Song the friendless stars intone. 
Sung whene'er the tempest hurtles, 
Bruits destruction to the world; 
Song of every song of sorrow. 
Wail for every grief and woe, 
World affliction, w^orld lamenting; 
Sorrow of the lonely desert; 

290 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Sadness of a homeless people; 

Anguish of a chfded mortal, 

Hounded, tracked, oppressed, and beaten, 

Made the scourge of God on earth; 

Outcry of a sinful bosom 

Warring with his guilt and wrong. 

'Tis a saintly aspiration 

Of a holy soul in prayer; 

'Tis the music hummed by mercy, 

When the heart is touched by love. 

'Tis the welding of all mercy, 

Love, forgiveness, in a union, 

Sweeping o'er the span of ages, 

Flooding earth with one majestic, 

Universal hymn of woe. 

As if God had willed his children 

Weep in but one human strain. 

Who can hear this strange Kol Nidre 
Without dropping in the spell? 
Lift the vestige of the present, 
Link the momentary fleeting 
Of the evening with the past; 
Dwell a spirit in the ages. 
Living in the heart of time: 
Lose the sense of outer worlds, 
Soul alone in endless time, 
Breathing but the breath of ages. 

Joseph Leiser. 

Kip pur 

OH, thou Eternal and Omnipotent! 

How shall thy erring children come to Thee 
And ask for peace? Although the head be bent, 

Even as a bulrush, 'tis but a mockery 
H the dark, sin-struck heart still cling to earth; 

Still make its idol of the world's frail clay. 
And the pure and glorious forget its birth 

Before the glittering bubble of a day. 

291 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Or if a spark of hatred linger still 
Against a brother, sinful though he be, 

Oh ! Thou In Heaven, how shall we come to Thee ? 
Vain are the words that spring with empty sound 

While the insensate heart betrays no wound, 

And we are slaves unto our stubborn will. 

But if, oh, Thou eternal God of love, 

If we perchance, find favor in Thy sight, 
Guide us oh, Holy One! from this our night 

And grant remission from thy courts above. 

Low in the dust we mourn the fatal sin 

That hath beguiled our souls from the true path. 
Oh, deal not on our heads thy fearful wrath ; 

Forgive the past and grant us strength to win 
The glorious prize of immortality. 
The bliss to dwell forevermore with thee. 

We are thy children — let our prayers arise 

Like the sweet Incense of a sacrifice. 

And from this day henceforward let us be 

Bound by love's holiest ties, our God, to Thee. 

Rebekah Hyneman. 



Day of Atonement 

'T'HIS day sublime elect, my God, to Thee 
•*■ Is gift so grand 

That on this morn of grace from sin set free, 

I pleading stand 
Before Thy holy dwelling place 
Where light and beauty interlace. 
Oh, that the priceless power were mine 
To glorify Thy throne divine ! 

Anonymous. 



292 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Yom Kip pur 

r\ LORD of Hosts, Thou Only One, 
^^ Art radiant in star and sun, 
"Thy Will be done!" 

All life is Thine ere life's begun, 
All life is Thine when life is run, 
"Thy Will be done!" 

The scarlet thread of sin is spun. 
Forgive us, Gracious, Holy One, 
"Thy Will be done!" 

George Alexander Kohut. 



Prayer for the Day of Atonement 

(Yom Kippur, 5662.) 

IF I have failed, my God, to see 

That Thy great Love w^as guiding me; 
If I have missed the open path 
Of Truth, which e'er Thy sanction hath; 
If, busy with the passing hour, 
I noted not Thy glorious Power; 
And, 'mid the boast and pomp of things. 
Restrained my spirit on its wings; 
Then, Father, show me Grace I pray. 
And lead me toward the righteous way; 
Then, Lord of Hosts, compassion me. 
And let Thy Love my shelter be! 

George Alexander Kohut. 



Yom Kippur 



T 



O Thee we give ourselves today. 
Forgetful of the world outside; 
We tarry in Thy House, O Lord, 
From eventide to eventide. 



293 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

From Thy all-seeing, righteous eye 
Our deepest heart can nothing hide; 

It crieth up to Thee for peace 
From eventide to eventide. 

Who could endure, should'st Thou, O Lord, 

As we deserve, forever chide? 
We therefore seek Thy pardoning grace 

From eventide to eventide. 

O may we lay to heart how swift 
The years of life do onward glide; 

So learn to live that we may see 
Thy light at our life's eventide. 

GUSTAV GOTTHEIL. 



The White and Scarlet Thread 

The Message of the Atonement 

•yURN, O Israel, turn and live; 
■■• Thought to thread of warning give. 
Lo! the solemn hour is here. 
May the thread be white and clear 
Though deep sin the conscience darken. 
Sinner, pray and God will hearken. 

Anonymous. 



After Yom Kippur 

'T'HE great white fast! the day that solemnly 
■■• Its clarion-call sent over land and sea, 
In gracious summons of the Voice Divine; 
That bade the soul before truth's inner shrine, 
Clad In the whiteness of humility, 
Itself disrobed of all externals be; — 
What mandate gave the day to you and me? 

294 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

It Is the judgment day of all the year! 

Unmasked, life's vices hideously appear, 

As conscience struggles with its deadly fear; 

With introspection's force by memory driven, 

We find the flower-strewn path led far from heaven. 

At cost of highest aims flung in the dust, 

We have been faithless, merciless, unjust. 

As by Thy shrines of prayer, devout we stood, 

Throbbed heart with will-power's love of brotherhood ? 

With invocations to Thy holy name. 

Looked we beyond reward of earthly fame? 

Dared we Thy present inspiration seek, 

With might of gold's oppression 'gainst the weak? 

The glowing friendship, as a meteor's flight, 

Lost In the storm depths of swift falling night; 

O'er all the beautiful, cast worldly blight. 

Shall the reverberating call in vain 

Echo throughout the awaiting world's domain? 

Nor summon Israel from lethargic sleep. 

In broader fields, on grander heights to reap? 

The Past is o'er; has justice entered in 
The awakened conscience? and the worldly din 
Died into silence 'neath the voice of God? 
Know we the wherefore of the chastening rod? 
That mercy's tenderness our hearts enshrine 
Are we uplifted to the heights divine? 
Cleansed from the idol worship of our pride, 
White robed humility be teaching guide; 
And Israel's heart of kinship link the hands, 
Of the compassionate throughout all lands. 
The righteousness of freedom, understood 
Bind all of life in one vast brotherhood. 

Cora Wilburn. 



295 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 
Palms and Myrtles 

{Hymn for the First Day of Tabernacles) 

T^HY praise, O Lord, will I proclaim 
■*■ In h3mns unto Thy glorious name; 
O Thou Redeemer, Lord and King, 
Redemption to Thy faithful bring! 
Before thine altar they rejoice 

With branch of palm and myrtle-stem, 
To Thee they raise the praj^erful voice — 

Have mercy, save and prosper them. 

IMay'st Thou in mercy manifold, 
Dear untO' Thee Thy people hold, 
When at Thy gate they bend the knee, 
And worship and acknowledge Thee 
Do thou their hearts' desire fulfil; 

Rejoice with them in love this day. 
Forgive their sins, and thoughts of ill, 

And their transgressions cast away. 

They overflow with pra^^er and praise 
To Him, who knows the future days. 
Have mercy Thou, and hear the prayer 
Of those who palms and myrtles bear. 
Thee day and night they sanctify 

And in perpetual song adore, 
Like the heavenly host, they cry, 

''Blessed art Thou for evermore." 

Eleazar Kalir. 
(Translated by Alice Lucas.) 

The Tabernacle 

(Leviticus xxxiii., 33-43) 

ET us build to the Lord of the earth in each place 
The Tent, which His glorious presence will grace. 
'Twill be hallowed with light that descends from on 
high, 

296 



L 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Where the prayers and the praises are heard thro' the 

sky. 
'TIs the time when the beauty of earth is fulfilled, 
And the stars all look down on the Tent that we build ; 
When the moon in her robing of silver attire, 
Approaches in silence, the sun's crimson fire ! 
All the splendour of heaven, the beauties of earth, 
Exult in the love that has given them birth ! 
The boughs of thick trees with their leaves all entwine, 
Round the delicate stems of the Myrtle and Vine;^ 
The Palm trees are clasping the Willows with joy, 
A rapture that death cannot change or destroy; 
Each tree that was bearing its fruit o'er the land, 
Owes renewal of life, to the One mighty hand! 
Its exquisite beauty enchanting our sight, 
One thought has created, for taste and delight. 
Choice flowers in manifold colours and scent. 
Adorn the frail walls of the gorgeous built tent; 
Where "showers of blessings" from promise divine, 
Replete with His mandates, eternally shine! 
Now twilight glides gently o'er trees, fruit and flower; 
And fragrant the breath of the exquisite bower. 
The lamps that were burning, are fast growing dim. 
While angels have enter'd, and chant a soft hymn ; 
'Tis the music of heaven ! their voices ascending. 
In tones m.ost celestial, with praises are blending. 
The trees are all trembling with joy, and the Rose 
Has awaken'd to see where the angels repose ; 
But they folded their wings all impervious thro' night, 
And vanish'd ere dawn spread her roseate light! 

Rose Emma Collins. 



Succoth 

YV/H AT offerings can we bring Thee, Lord ? 
^ Thy ruined Temple stands forlorn; 
Its stones are level with the sward 
Or alien altars now adorn. 

297 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And bitter desolation stills 

The lowings of the stateh' herds, 
The bleatings on a hundred hills, 

The shepherds' songs of joyous words. 
No fields of corn or luscious vines 

Thy people's toiling hands engage, 
And from the Ghetto's dark confines 

They make no holy pilgrimage 
To bring their offerings to Thy shrine 

With sound of tabret and of lute; 
They pour a draught of bitter wine 

And lay before Thee Dead Sea fruit! 
Oh, give us back our fathers' days, 

The land they trod in festive glee, 
When harvestings were acts of praise 

And best ripe fruits were gifts to Thee! 

M. M. 

A Tabernacle Thought 

I OVELY grapes and apples, 

And such pretty flowers, 
Blooming in the Succah 

That in the backyard towers. 

Green leaves for the ceiling 

Sift the sun and shade 
To a pretty pattern 

As in forest glade. 

Cool retreat and dainty 

For a little child, 
Toddling in, by prospect 

Of its joys beguiled. 

Round he casts his blue eyes, 

Stretches hand in haste; 
Darling baby, all this 

Just is to his taste. 

298 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

But soon his eyes brim over 

As with sudden tears, 
Ah, he learns the lesson 

Of the coming years. 

Israel Zangwill. 



A Succoth Hymn 

POR garnered fields and meadows cropped 

And orchards plucked of peach and pear- 
Lord, what Thy hand has given us, 

For this we bring our grateful prayer. 

To Thee we come with hearts made glad : 
For wheat that is our staff and stay; 

For oats and rye that caught the glint 
Of sunset on a summer's day. 

With face upturned in sun and rain, 
And stout resolves to do our task — 

O Lord, who gives to each his due. 
Thy blessings for these do we ask: — 

That never faltering, though our arms 
Were weary and and our spirits spent; 

That bravely we endured the toil 
And anguish that the seasons sent; 

We thank Thee, yea, for throbs of Love 

That glorify each earth-born soul, 
And link all pulsing hearts to Thee 

In one vast, universal whole. 

Joseph Leiser. 



299 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Simchas Torah 

{The Rejoicing of the Law) 

^<CIMCHAS-TORAH! skip and hop 

^ On your feet till down you drop! 

In your mouth a merry jest — 
And a burden in your breast." 

{Old Song.) 

So frisky and fit, 
At table we sit, 
We eat what we choose, 
We drink and are gay. 
Sing, brother Jews, 
Be merry today ! 
Cup after cup — 
Drink it all up 
No need to fear. 
Lift up your voice, 
To-day we rejoice. 
Sing brothers dear. 

Alas, Jewish singing! 

And alas! Jewish gladness. 

What means it; O tell me, 

And whence is the sadness 

That weighs on my heart when I hear.. ; 

I hang down my head 

Like a child that is chidden. 

And oft, ere I know It, 

Uncalled for, unbidden, 

Falls bitter and burning, 

A tear! 

Not always with sorrow 
Our hopes are requited ; 
And often the sunshine 

300 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Has brightened our way. 

We once were a nation 

Both strong and united, 

And yet, O my brothers, 

And yet, to this day 

We keep not one feast day 

But still doth remind us 

Of swords that lie shivered 

And broken behind us. 

And old tattered banners, 

Now useless and furled, 

Of all our dead heroes, 

Our great ones who perish. 

The altars forgotten, 

The ruins uncherlshed. 

And scattered abroad o'er the world 

No song but contains but 

Two w^ords of rejoicing, 

In which we discern not 

The jesting below. 

An echo of laughter, 

Of false bitter laughter, 

A cry half-despairing 

Of shame and of woe ! . . . 

O great and happy feast-day, SImchas-Torah! 

High above your head thy bright star flashes 
To win such a feast-day, one such feast-day. 

Ten we spend fasting in sackcloth and ashes. 

Morris Rosenfeld. 



Simchas Tor ah 

I ECHAYIM, my brethren, Lechayim, I say! 

Health, peace and good fortune I wish you to-day. 
To-day we have ended the Torah once more, 
To-day we begin it anew as of yore. 
Be thankful and glad and the Lord extol, 
Who gave us the Law on its parchment scroll. 

301 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The Torah has been our consolation, 

Our help in exile and sore privation. 

Lost have w^e all we were wont to prize, 

Our holy temple a ruin lies. 

Laid waste is the land where our songs we sung; 

Forgotten our language, our mother tongue; 

Of kingdom and priesthood are we bereft. 

Our faith is our only treasure left. 

God in our hearts, the Law in our hands, 

We have wandered sadly through many lands; 

We have suffered much, yet behold we live 

Through the comfort the Law alone can give. 

Come, my dear brethren, come, let us look! 

Quick let us ope an historical book! 

See, all the tales and the chronicles old. 

They tell but of robbers and bandits bold. 

World-wide is the scene of our story, and still 

'Tis traced with a sword-point instead of a quill ; 

The ink is of blood, mixed with tears of distress, 

In exile, not Leipzig it passed through the press; 

No gilding it shows, and in iron 'tis bound. 

Where we met not with suffering and fierce oppression 

For the sake of the Torah, our sole possession. 

In the very beginning, a long time ago, 

We held up our heads with the best, as you know ; 

When householders sitting at home we were, 

Nor needed the strangers' meal to share. 

May none have to bear at the hands of men 

What we from our neighbors have borne since then. 

How bitter alas! was the lot we knew 

When our neighbours to our landlords grew. 

And we were driven by fate unkind 

Our lodgings beneath their roof to find. 

How did we live then ? How did we rest ? 

Ask not, I pray you, for silence is best ; 

Like cabbage heads, hither and thither that fall. 

With the holy Law we traversed through all. 

302 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Two thousand years, a little thing when spoken, 

Two thousand years, tormented, crushed and broken, 

Seven and seventy dark generations; 

Filled up with anguish and lamentations. 

Their tale of sorrow did I unfold 

No Simchas Torah today we'd hold. 

And why should I tell it you all again? 

In our bones 'tis branded with fire and pain. 

We have sacrificed all. We have given our wealth, 

Our homes, our honors, our land and our health. 

Our lives — like Hannah her children seven — 

For the sake of the Torah that came from Heaven. 

And now w^hat next? Will they let us be? 
Have the nations then come at last to see 
That we Jews are men like the rest, and no more 
Need we wander homeless as hithertofore. 
Abused and slandered wherever we go ! 
Ah ! I cannot tell you, but this I know 
That the same God still lives In heaven above. 
And on earth the same Law, the same Faith, that we 
love. 

Then fear not, and weep not, but hope In the Lord 

And the sacred Torah, his holy word. 

Lechayim, my brother, Lechayim, I say. 

Health, peace and good fortune I wish you to-day, 

To-day w^e have ended the Torah once more, 

To-day we begin It again as of yore. 

Be thankful and glad and the Lord extol, 

Who gave us the Law on its parchment scroll. 

J. L. Gordon. 

Simchas Torah 

rULL oft has the ark been opened 

And In the sad procession. 
Our Fathers bore the sacred Law 
Their one most dear possession. 

303 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

While unto the foe abandoned 

To ravish and to spoil, 
They left their rich and plenteous store, 

The fruits of a life of toil. 

And into the regions unfathomed 
They bore the precious scroll, 

To shield it or to die for it, 
To pay the exile's toll. 

Yet in to-day's pageant procession 
Of banner and scroll and light, 

The Jew clasps tight the self-same Law 
He bore through oppression's night. 

Rejoice then, O Israel! Thy praise 

Unto thy Maker give. 
No more the Torah bids thee die; 

To-day it bids thee live ! 

To live for it, and to cherish 

Each sacred memory. 
Which time has woven in a crown 

Of glory unto thee. 

Let revelry hold Its sway, then, 
And the hour be given to cheer; 

For the cycle of reading is ended 
On the happiest day of the year. 

And lest the mocker, derisive. 

Avow you delight to be through, 

Lovingly wind it from end to start; 
Begin to read it anew. 

C. David Matt. 



304 



THE JEWISH YEAR 



Judas Maccabeus 

\/ICTOR of God! O thou whose lamp of Fame 
^ Fed with the fire of immortality, 

Doth swing, triumphant, 'cross the glooming sea 

Of Time ! Preserver of thy Country's name ! 

Judas, whose heart and arm were as a flame 
To burn and burst the chains of slavery, 
And rage about the witching upas-tree 

Of Grecian glamour and of Grecian shame! 

Soul of th' undying dead ! Arise, and hear 
The troubled cry of Israel that comes. 
And quivers o'er his fathers' ancient tombs, 

And perishes in night of Doubt and Fear ; 

While East and West voice self-shaped destinies, 

Come, Great Deliverer, arise! arise! 

Henry Snowman. 



The Maccahean 

VY7HETHER of Fate, or by the hand of man, 
^^ His hallowed soul glows still the ages through; 

Their flux the body changes, hue on hue. 
But, brooding Ivanese or quick American, 
His heart must answer to the Yaweh-clan 

When thrills its call the earth or cracks the blue, 

His spirit leaps onto the fray anew, 
As when he shamed Olympus with his ban. 

Not his is It to lag in the world-war 
Nor to question whether he live or die. 

And though his soul and sense red strife abhor. 
His task forever is to purify. 

Behold the standard that of old he bore 
Flash like the sun into the clouded sky. 

Horace M. Kallen. 



305 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The Maccabean Call 

/^UT of dense darkness, stress of the ages, 
^^ Flashes a star conquering night; 
Visions of seers, path guide of sages, 
Portent of dawn's purpled glad light. 

Names one all heroes men would remember 
Leaders of hosts, battling for right: — 

Quenches their glory's flickering ember 
Glow of that star's intenser might. 

Hammer of prophet, despot defying. 
Banner with God's lettered signs, 

Priest and true soldier sends he aflying. 
Chaff like the king's cowardly lines. 

Slingshot and bowstring, buckler and lances 
David of old wielded with skill — 

Harpstring as sweetly toning glad dances 
Woke he to echo silv'ry rill. 

Judah's last lion, David's sole better. 
Sword and the harp equally knew, 

Psalming his faith's music and letter. 
Joying light's birth song, melody new. 

Judah, thou hero, song still inspiring. 

Wilt thou not rout this weak day's doubt? 

Israel, martyr, newly aspiring. 

Raise thou again Maccabee's shout. 

What If barbed arrows black hatred hurling, 
Unsheaths the sword Syrians once drew, 

Wave not the flag, God's sign unfurling, 
Judah the Hammer's purpose still true? 

Choir not the ages, boldly defying 
Tyrants' and bigots' hoarse battle-cry, 

Singing this one song, surely relying 
Mi Kamokha Baelim Adhonay? 

306 



1 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Up Thou and shine forth, thy light unhidden 
Must rally round thee, livers of right! 

Cleanse thou thy temple. All men be bidden 
Join thee, God's Priest, at thy altared light! 

Emil G. Hirsch. 



The Maccabees 

YY/HEN you tell of Israel's heroes, those who lived 
^ in days of old. 

Sing aloud the well-earned praises of the Maccabees 
so bold; 

Men who never shrank from danger, fought right 
nobly for their God, 

Though a handful 'gainst a myriad, though their life- 
blood stained the sod. 

Though so great the odds against them, never feared 

they mortal foe. 
Fiercely fighting and subduing those who worked their 

brethren woe; 
Inspired with holy zeal were they, nought could quell 

their spirits brave. 
No mercy e'er their foemen knew and no quarter Judas 

gave. 

Mayhap their war-cry — "Mi Kamocha Baelim 

Adonay" — 
Excited all to courage great, animated them with joy; 
"Who is like unto Thee, O Lord," they sang with 

reverent love. 
With their lips attuned to praises for the God who 

dwells above. 

Oh, heart-inspiring shibboleth, that nerved to deeds of 

glory 
The tender youth, maturer men, as well as sages 

hoary ! 

307 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

No wonder heathen, senseless gods Israel's worship 

could not gain, 
While they sang in joyful harmony that glorious 

refrain ! 

Not for love of savage-warfare fought brave Judas 

and his band — 
But religion true and holy, those they loved, their 

homes, their land, 
With that liberty of conscience man should ever yield 

to man — 
These the Maccabees desired — these that placed them 

under ban. 

Surely, hist'ry ne'er recorded, nor has poet ever sung, 
More gallant deeds, I trow, than these, that have 

down the ages rung; 
Not for self they fought so bravely, not for pelf or 

sordid gold, 
But for love of God Almighty, was their banner e'er 

unrolled. 

Of their battles and their vict'ries, it were bootless to 

relate — 
All have heard their wondrous triumphs, of their 

great and glorious fate; 
How they vanquished foes tyrannic, how they won 

their cause at length. 
How they kept their war-cry ever as their watchword 

and their strength. 

To that noble band all honor for their gallant acts of 

yore, 
For their high-born, peerless courage, for the woes they 

bravely bore ! 
When you tell of Israel's heroes, those who lived in 

days of old. 
Sing aloud the well-earned praises of the Maccabees 

so bold. Miriam Myers. 

308 



THE JEWISH YEAR 



The Banner of the Jew 

YY/AKE, Israel, wake! Recall today 
^ The glorious Maccabean rage, 
The sire heroic, hoary-gray, 
His five-fold lion-lineage: 
The Wise, the Elect, the Help-of-God, 
The Burst-of-Spring, the Avenging Rod. 

From Mizpeh's mountain-side they saw 
Jerusalem's empty streets, her shrine 

Laid waste where Greeks profaned the Law, 
With idol and with pagan sign. 

Mourners in tattered black were there, 

With ashes sprinkled on their hair. 

Then from the stony peak there rang 

A blast to ope the graves: down poured 

The Maccabean clan, who sang 
Their battle-anthem to the Lord. 

Five heroes lead, and following, see, 

Ten thousand rush to victory! 

Oh, for Jerusalem's trumpet now, 
To blow a blast of shattering power. 

To wake the sleepers high and low, 
And rouse them to the urgent hour! 

No band for vengeance — but to save, 

A million naked swords should wave. 

Oh, deem not dead that martial fire, 
Say not the mystic flame is spent! 

With Moses' law and David's lyre. 

Your ancient strength remains unbent. 

Let but an Ezra rise anew. 

To lift the Banner of the Jew! 

A rag, a mock at first — ere long, 

When men have bled and women wept, 

309 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

To guard Its precious folds from wrong, 

Even they who shrunk, even they who slept, 
Shall leap to bless It and to save. 
Strike! for the brave revere the brave! 

Emma Lazarus. 



The Jewish Mother and Her Sons Before 
Antiochus 

'T'HE sun shone bright upon a kingly throne 
"*• Where, clad In state, there sat a mighty one, 
Courtiers around him thronged — below, a mighty 

crowd 
Of mingled heads, with voices low and loud. 
Swayed, as do tresses In tempest weather-tossed, 
By winds conflicting, or ships to safety lost. 
Heaving on billowy seas, and rudely driven 
Now here and there yet farther from a haven. 

Thus swayed the crowd, gazing with awe-struck mien, 
On royalty, clad In Its glorious sheen, 
While from his throne Antiochus grimly smiled, 
Upon that sea of heads, as If beguiled, 
To see so many slaves, with flattery meek 
Waiting to know what his one will might seek. 
"Bring of her seven sons," he fiercely cried. 
And cruel shouts arose from every side. 

She came, tho' deadly pale, yet calm her face, 
And sternly graceful her majestic pace. 
Supported by her first born warrior son. 
Of all her braves, the bravest, noblest one. 
The sw^aylng crowd is hushed to murmurs low, 
"Wilt thou worship the King's God?" "By my fore- 
fathers, no!" 
Rose on the air; again the shouts rise, 
Then low on earth the martyr'd soldier lies, 

310 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

His blood flows o'er the mother's feet, she bends in 

prayer; 
Then looks on her heroic band, ah! one is wanting 

there. 

Again the summons came, two now before the king 

In manhood's earliest glories stand in the fatal ring 

Alike in lineaments, with arms entwined 

They seem two forms, in but one soul combined. 

**Wilt bow, stiff necks? bethink ye well, 'tis death 

By one refusal." "Our God has given us breath, 

We may not bow." "Ah, bind them on the wheel," 

The King cries fiercely, and with hearts of steel 

His myrmidons obey — by her sons' side 

The mother stands, hushing the anguish tide 

Of woe too deep for tears, to comfort them, 

And give to them their last prayers, her soft amen. 

"Wilt now receive our God? methinks thou see'st 

Thine in thine hour of danger flee." 

But feebly with joined hands the upward sign, 

The sufferers put back; and so they died. 

Thus, one by one, three others rendered up 

In torture drear, life's young hope-jeweled cup, 

Rather than to profane God's jealous right 

And be apostates in their mother's sight. 

But one was left; a fair-haired, blue-eyed boy, 

The household idol, and his mother's joy. 

The lad's high bearing much the King admired, 

And of this bloody sport e'en he had tired ; 

He told the child of death, its awful pangs, 

Pictured the terror that around it hangs; 

Then spoke of life, its joys, hopes, pleasures new. 

Touching on things the brightest to the view, 

But the mother's look pled with him as she wept. 

And the brave child his God's commandment kept. 

The King amazed to see such moral strength 
In one so young would go to any length, 

311 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

To save the boy. But crowds were standing 'round 

The raised tribunal, watching without sound 

This moral duel 'twixt the King and child 

With admiration and excitement wild. 

The royal word must not be humbled now 

While gaping thousands watch to see him bow; 

Some act of homage must the child perform 

To blind the crowd, his friends or foes to warn 

And show a will subdued. "Boy, I would save thy 

life 
And shield thee from the torturer's cutting knife. 
See! I but drop my ring; kneel, hand it to me 
And this small act shall give life back to thee." 
The child — boy paused — this act was but a right, 
An homage due from all to royal might; 
But looking 'round — his friends were too far now 
To hear the King's last words ; but they could see him 

bow. 
Might not the King have given him the reprieve 
To blind the many, his friends to deceive? 
Might they not think he to the Idol bowed? 
The boy turned thoughtful from th' admiring crowd 
Towards the King, — firmly refused to kneel 
For fortune or for any weal. 

Where was the mother then? Torn from her boy 

away 
She could but weep, and to the Almighty pray. 
Oh! who could tell the fear and agony, 
Lest he might kneel, and that she was not nigh 
To warn him of the tempter's subtlety; 
But when he turned, refusing to obey, 
What pure meek triumph crown'd her queenly brow! 
But see the King has from him sternly turned 
With bitter hate, which for more bloodshed burned ; 
Now on they bear him to the fatal place, 
While sadness troubled e'en the torturer's face, 
To see him like a flower so rudely torn, 
While her white face bent o'er him, thin and worn. 

312 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

The mother knelt, clasping the little hand, 

Kissing the lips that grew so cold and wan ; 

His curls dampened in death, he murmured low, 

"Receive my soul! oh! God, I did not bow!" 

Then bound they her upon that cruel place 

Where smiling lay her martyred boy's dead face. 

She prayed awhile, her eyes raised high above, 

An eight-fold crown would there reward her love: 

**I have surpass'd thee, Abraham," triumphantly she 

cried, 
"Thou gavest One, I seven to God !" And so she 

died. 

R. Manahan. 



A Tale From the Talmud 

TN Judah, in the days of story, 

When chronicles were gilt with glory, 
Heroic dames and virgins then 
The equal honors earned with men ; 
And God himself the prophet taught 
To praise and bless them as he ought. 

My heart exults to contemplate, 

My rhyme runs eager to relate 

Their courage firm, their high resolve, 

Their faith that nothing could dissolve. 

Oh, that enthusiasm strong 

Would from the theme inspire the song; 

That in this sad, degenerate time 

I'd write in poetry sublime — ■ 

What might some grace of emulation 

Raise in a faint and prostrate nation. 

I leave to men of deeper knowing 

The task of God's inerrant showing; 

How nature's best and noblest sons 

Are cursed and crushed by worthless ones; 

313 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

But this I know, that virtues holy- 
Are brightened by contrasting folly, 
And constant courage best was shown 
When persecutors had the throne, 
And columns high had ne'er been reared, 
Had no invading foe appeared ; 
And when to desperate straits we're brought, 
Then God's deliverance is wrought. 

When Judah by the Gentile arms 
Had seen th' extreme of war's alarms, 
O'erthrown her temple and her city, 
Her children slaughtered without pity; 
The demon conqueror intended 
Her name and fame should both be ended. 
He thought one dreadful, dire example 
Of horrid torture might be ample. 
Now that Jehovah'd them forsaken 
And from his folk his flight had taken. 

One matron from the drove he chooses, 
Her seven sons he also looses; 
In public presence will them test, 
To answer his supreme behest. 

The eldest, he him sets before; 

"Now, bending down, our gods adore." 

"The Lord forbid," he reverent cries; 

"His holy law such act denies. 

I to no image — neither thee — 

Shall kiss the hand nor bend the knee." 

His life made forfeit then was taken — 
His trust in Israel's God unshaken. 

The next that sacred household cherished, 
Who witnessed how his br9ther perished. 
At once responded: "Shall I less 
Than his my faith in God confess? 

314 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

I love God's law — its second word 

Is none but he is Israel's Lord." 

And so he died for truth and faith. 

The third, undaunted, also saith : 

"None but Jehovah worship I" — 

And likewise he was drawn to die. 

The fourth the traitor's awful doom 

Sets forth: "Who in Jehovah's room 

Shall worship hero, god or demon" — 

His young life, too, the sword makes claim on. 

"Our God is one," the Scripture saith, 
"And him alone I'll own in death." 
So died the fifth ; our watchword brave 
Fresh courage to the next one gave : 
"Jehovah — terrible is he 
Who, Israel, dwells in midst of thee; 
He may his awful plans conceal, 
But in his time he'll them reveal." 
So passed the youthful sixth, in dying, 
"Jehovah, take me," meekly sighing. 

Assuming now a tender mien 

The tyrant pleads: "My boy, you've seen 

How vain it is to trust in one 

Who utmost unconcern has shown. 

'Tis only to respect our law — 

I'd put your countrymen in awe ; 

For Rome, supreme, must be obeyed — 

Nor gods nor emperor gainsaid. 

The test from thee's a simple thing — 

In front of Jove I'll drop my ring, 

Stoop down and pick it up ; no thought 

Of inferential change is wrought." 

The bright-cheeked boy, his eyes upturned, 
The tyrant's seeming mercy spurned ; 
His soul kept free from heathen stains 
Breaks forth in rapt prophetic strains: . 

315 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

"Forever reigns our glorious Lord — 
Performed shall be his faithful word ; 
His kingdom raised, while ruined thine 
He'll to oblivion consign. 
As chastened Israel sufifers now, 
So shall he purer offerings vow. 
His faith in days that have gone by 
Endear him to his God most high, 
And future glories wait the day 
When all mankind shall own his sway; 

"But thou might'st save thy soul if He 
Were but to show His power to thee." 
He thus to Chaldea's king made known 
His sovereign Lord and God alone. 
The prostrate king the word obeyed 
And favor found and humbly prayed. 
To God's own folk he mercy showed 
And so was blessed in his abode ; 
But thou, nor truth nor mercy giving, 
Are but for greater vengeance living. 

"To death!" the raging tyrant cries. 
Prevention weak the mother tries, 
With arms enfolding makes her plea: 
"O let him not be torn from me — 
My seventh, my last, my life, my all! 
On me let first thy vengeance fall. 
Sword, come on me, nor let me see 
The death of one so dear to me!" 

"Nay, nay," the scofFer made reply, 
"Your law forbids that you should die; 
'Ye dare not slay the dam that day 
Ye take the offspring's life away.' " 

"Thou scourge of man, thou hand of God! 
Thy sins thy guilty soul shall load, 
Till down to depths thou shalt be driven, 
Transcending all that fell from heaven. 

316 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

But go, my son, when Abra'm thou 
In blissful peace shalt meet, avow 
Superior reverence to me — 
For I gave seven, but one gave he — 
But tempted was his faith when tried, 
See mine performed — my Isaacs died. 

''What shall I add?" Her reason flown, 
Why should she linger here alone — 
Wandering unguarded, heedless, fell 
She whom her Lord had honored well. 

Has Judah now no valiant dame 
That might such awful honors claim? 
For answer: In my northern home 
You'll see, ere wintry weather come. 
The fields the cheery flowers adorn, 
Bejeweled bright at early morn ; 
Then fierce the driving, biting storm 
Will bare the meads of every form 
That spring and summer spread around 
So lavish on the fertile ground. 
But brightly then the heather bell 
Purple the hills I love so well. 
When dangerous foxgloves, crimson clover 
Lie hid till winter storms are over; 
The bloom upon the Arcadian hills 
Is blown by that which verdure kills. 

If Judah's winter comes again. 
Her hero dames shall bloom amain. 

William Dearness. 

Song of Judas Maccabeus Before the 
Battle of M asp ha 

/^N, warriors and chiefs! every step we have trod, 
^^^ Though blood-stained with carnage and heaped 

with the slain, 
Bear witness we fight for the glory of God, 

Whose aid we have asked, nor entreated in vain. 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Attest It your armies, whose glittering array 
At noonday outshown in his splendor the sun, 

Attest It ye proud girded warriors, who lay 
Unhonored and cold when the battle was done. 

They came to subdue us, Oh, God of the just! 

Thy arm was our shield, Thy protection our power. 
Still aid and defend us, Oh, Thou whom we trust, 

In prosperity's pride and affliction's dark hour. 

When we cease to remember the martyrs, whose blood 
They have poured out like water, may we be forgot ; 

When we cease to remember the fierce pangs they 
withstood, 
May our strength be derided, our memory a blot. 

Oh, falter not v/hen their fierce glittering host 

Comes spreading destruction and blight o'er the 
land ; 
Remember proud Syrian, how vain was his boast. 
And firm be your hearts like the rocks w^here you 
stand. 

Then on ! can ye waver when Heaven's pure light 
Smiles approvingly down on the path we have trod ? 

On ! on ! be It victory or death ! ere the night 

We have conquered or died for the glory of God. 

Rebekah Hyneman. 



The Miraculous Oil 

T ITTLE cruet in the Temple 

That dost feed the sacrificial flame. 
What a true expressive symbol 

Art thou of my race, of Israel's fame ! 
Thou for days the oil didst furnish 

To Illume the Temple won from foe — 
So for centuries In my people 

Spirit of resistance ne'er burnt low. 

318 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

It was cast from home and country, 

Gloom and sorrow were its daily lot; 
Yet the torch of faith gleamed steady, 

Courage, like thy oil, forsook it not. 
Mocks and jeers were all its portion, 

Death assailed it in ten thousand forms — 
Yet this people never faltered, 

Hope, its beacon, led it through all storms. 
Poorer than dumb, driven cattle. 

It went forth enslaved from its estate. 
All its footsore wand'rings lighted 

By its consciousness of worth innate. 
Luckless fortunes could not bend it ; 

Unjust laws increased its wondrous faith; 
From its heart, exhaustless streaming. 

Freedom's light shone on its thorny path. 
Oil that burnt in olden Temple, 

Eight days only didst thou give forth light ! 
Oil of faith sustained this people 

Through the centuries of darkest night ! 

Caroline Deutsch. 

The Feast of Lights 

l^INDLE the taper like the steadfast star 

■'• *• Ablaze on evening's forehead o'er the earth. 

And add each night a lustre till afar 

An eightfold splendor shine above thy hearth. 
Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre. 

Blow the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn ; 
Chant psalms of victory till the heart take fire. 

The Maccabean spirit leap new-born. 

Remember how from wintry dawn till night, 
Such songs were sung in Zion, when again 

On the high altar flamed the sacred light. 
And, purified from every Syrian stain. 

The foam-white walls with golden shields were hung. 
With crowns and silken spoils, and at the shrine, 

319 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Stood, midst their conqueror-tribe, five chieftains 
sprung 
From one heroic stock, one seed divine. 

Five branches grown from Mattathias' stem, 

The Blessed John, the Keen-Eyed Jonathan, 
Simon the fair, the Burst-of-SprIng, the Gem, 

Eleazar, Help of God ; o'er all his clan 
Judas the Lion-Prince, the Avenging Rod, 

Towered in warrior-beauty, uncrowned king, 
Armed with the breastplate and the sword of God, 

Whose praise Is: "He received the perishing." 

They who had camped within the mountain-pass. 

Couched on the rock, and tented 'neath the sky, 
Who saw from Mizpah's height the tangled grass 

Choke the wide Temple-courts, the altar lie 
Disfigured and polluted — who had flung 

Their faces on the stones, and mourned aloud 
And rent their garments, wailing with one tongue, 

Crushed as a wind-swept bed of reeds is bowed, 

Even they by one voice fired, one heart of flame, 

Though broken reeds, had risen, and were men, 
They rushed upon the spoiler and o'ercame. 

Each arm for freedom had the strength of ten. 
Now Is their mourning into dancing turned. 

Their sackcloth doited for garments of delight, 
Week-long the festive torches shall be burned, 

Music and revelry wed day with night. 

Still ours the dance, the feast, the glorious Psalm, 

The mystic lights of emblem and the Word. 
Where is our Judas? Where are our five-branched 
palm? 

Where are the llon-warrlors of the Lord? 
Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre, 

Sound the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn, 
Chant hymns of victory till the heart take fire. 

The Maccabean spirit leap new-born! 

Emma Lazarus. 

320 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Chanukah Hymn 

T ORD, the true that follow thee 
^"^ Beam in vict'ry's radiant light, 
Fill'd their hearts with joyous glee, 
Even in the darkest night. 

Roaring billows wild and fleet, 

Onward pressed the enemy's band ; 

Israel's remnant Jacob's seat, 

How wilt thou their might withstand? 

Rise ye heroes, rise to fight 

For your standard, truth divine, 
Not by numbers nor by might. 

By his spirit ye shall shine. 

And inspired by such appeal 

Ev'ry man to hosts increased ; 
And they fought with holy zeal 

Till the tyrant-hold released. 

Lord, thy truth, thy holy love, 

Is our cherish'd banner still; 
And in faith for evermore, 

Thy command we follow will. 

Adolph Huebsch. 

Golden Lights for Chanukah 

r\ GOLDEN lights, shine out anew, 

^^^ Shine out with radiance bright and true, 

While gazing on your golden glow 

You speak to me of long ago. 

Of patriots who shed their blood 

For Israel's cause, for faith, for God. 

Did not they sacrifice their all 

When clarion-like there came the call? 

"Whose on the Lord's side, come to me. 

Lord among the gods, who is like thee?" 

Janie Jacobson. 

321 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



The Eight Chanukah Lights 

"VY/ITH fervor and joy we give thanks to the Lord, 
^^ And glory and praise to His name we accord, 
While we greet with great gladness this glorious night 
And piously kindle each Chanukah light. 

To God who is one, and whose name is but one, 
We'll ever feel grateful for what He has done; 
When all our race was as dark as the night 
Said the Guardian of Israel, "Let there be light!" 

The Commandments God gave to our nation alone. 
Whose words were engraved on two tablets of stone; 
And our people were chosen, with zeal and with 

might. 
To spread through the world the great heavenly light. 

Our fathers most nobly have striven to be 
As true to their God as the patriarchs three, 
Whose faith was a star which was shining so bright 
That the gloom of the world was illumed by its light. 

Four parts of the world — north, south, west and 

east — 
See the Israelites keeping the Chanukah feast. 
Who, just like ourselves, are performing the rite 
Of piously kindling each Chanukah light. 

The five Hasmoneans whose memory dear 
The sons of our people will ever revere, 
With the courage of heroes did fight for the right. 
And God's Temple they cleansed and rekindled the 
light. 

Six days we must labor and do all our work, 
And woe unto him who his duty doth shirk! 
Though the battle of life is a hard one to fight, 
With heaven's assistance our task is made lightt 

322 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

When the seventh day comes, by God hallowed and 

blest, 
We should joyfully welcome the day of sweet rest, 
For our lives are made happy and rendered more 

bright 
By the joys of the Sabbath, its peace and its light. 

May the eight days of Chanukah strengthen our mind 
To continue to labor for God and mankind, 
Till the day shall arrive when all men will unite 
To serve the one God and to walk in His light. 

Isidore Myers. 



Chanukah Lights 

A SINGLE light is kindled and it glows 
*^ Upon the darkness with a golden ray- 
A little feeble light, but yet it shows 

The night has still a fraction of the day. 

The single light has grown to two ; 

The friend has won a friend, the light 
Has warmed another heart, and through 

One fervor, two now^ pierce the night. 

The double light has grown to three, 
That brilliantly illumes the eve; 

Thus ever shall bright constancy 
The fruits of faithfulness receive! 

Three little lights have grown to four; 

How softly, sweetly do they shine. 
Their grace on all dark places pour 

A reflex of the light divine! 

Behold, the lights have grown to five! 

So courage grows in hearts that trust 
God's mercy, who will keep alive 

His children, though they be but dust. 

323 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

At last, the wondrous lights are eight, 
To six the little lamps have grown; 

In happy company they shed 
Their brightness. None need stand alone 

Who by the light of God are led. 

Thus shall God's purpose reach its goal. 



Anon, the lights have grown to seven, 

Behold, the night is as the day! 
So can this earth grow like to Heaven, 

If men will walk in Heaven's way. 
He lifts man from his low estate 

And breathes new hope into his soul. 

M. M. 



Chanukah Lights 

\/OU see these slender tapers standing there 

Like Lilliputians wrestling with the air, 
In yellow garb, that strange suggestive hue 
Of tragic reminiscence to the Jew? 

These tiny lights have struggled thus for years; 
Though often bathed in blood and drenched in tears, 
They flicker still — It seems no mortal might 
Can crush God's great miracle of light. 

This little group of torches came to show 

The hiding place of Heaven here below; 

By lighting every corner of the earth. 

They see and preach life's meaning and its worth. 

Though weak and few they caused the very heart 
Of all humanity to stir, and gave the start 
To God's most sacred truths; Indeed proclaim 
His Fatherhood, His purpose and His name. 

324 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Yea, Israel, it is Thy fate to fight 
In darkened corners and to shed the light 
Till all the world at last has learned to see 
Its way to God and immortality. 

Harold Debrest. 



Chanukah Lights 

I KINDLED my eight little candles, 

My Chanukah-candles — and lo! 
Fair visions and dreams half-forgotten 
To me cam.e of years long ago. 

I musingly gazed at my candles; 

Meseemed in their quivering flames 
In golden, in fiery letters 

I read the old glorious names, 

The names of our heroes immortal. 
The noble, the brave, and the true, 

A battle-field saw I in vision 

Where many were conquered by few. 

Where trampled in dust lay the mighty, 

Judea's proud Syrian foe; 
And Judas, the brave Maccabseus, 

In front of his army I saw. 

His eyes shone like bright stars of heaven. 
Like music rang out his strong voice: 

''Brave comrades, we fought and we conquered, 
Now let us, in God's name, rejoice! 

"We conquered — but know, O brave comrades. 
No triumph is due to the sword ! 

Remember our glorious watchword. 
Tor People and Towns of the Lord!' 



i> »> 



325 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

He spoke, and from all the four corners 

An echo repeated each word ; 
The woods and the mountains re-echoed: 

**For People and Towns of the Lord!" 

And swiftly the message spread, saying: 

"Judea, Judea is free, 
Re-kindled the lamp in the Temple, 

Re-kindled each bosom with glee!" 

"sgr "Sfc ^ HP 

My Chanukah-candles soon flickered. 
Around me was darkness of night ; 

But deep in my soul I felt shining 
A heavenly-glorious light. 

P. M. Raskin. 



O 



Legendary Lights 
THE legendary light, 



' Gleaming goldenly In night 

Like the stars above, i 

Beautiful, like lights in dream. 
Eight, the taper-flames that stream 

All one glory and one love. I 

In our Temple, magical — 

Memories, now tragical — 

Holy hero-hearts aflame 

With a glory more than fame; 

There where a shrine is every sod, 

Every grave, God's golden ore, 
With a paean whose rhyme to God, 

Lit these lamps of yore. 

Lights, you are a living dream, 
Faith and bravery you beam. 

Youth and dawn and May. 
Would your beam were more than dream, 
Would the light and love you stream, 

Stirred us, spurred us, aye! 

326 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Fabled memories of flame, 
Till the beast in man we tame, 
Tyrants bow to truth, amain, 
Brands and bullets yield to brain, 
Guns to God, and shells to soul, 
Hounds to heart resign the role. 
Pillared lights of liberty, 
In your fairy flames, we'll see 
Faith's and freedom's Phoenix-might, 
The Omnipotence of Right. 



Alter Abelson. 



Chanukah 

rjOWN-TRODDEN 'neath the Syrian heel 

Did Zion's sceptre lie; 
Her shrine, where once God's glory flung 
Its radiance, now wildly rung 
With pagan revelry. 

And in the Temple's secret place. 
Where once the High Priest bowed 

In homage to the King of kings. 

The vilest of all earthly things 
Was worshipped by the crowd. 

And still the flaming altar smoked, 

The priest was at his post. 
Commanding Israel's sons to pray 
To images of stone and clay, 
. Or swell the holocaust. 

Seven glorious brethren there had stood, 

Unflinching, side by side, 
And, sooner than yield up their faith, 
Had dared the faggot's burning breath, 

And willing martyrs died. 

327 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Not unavenged and not In vain 

Fell that undaunted race; 
For Judas, with his patriot band, 
Drove the oppressors from the land, 

And cleansed the holy place. 

Then the Menorah once again 

Illumed the holy shrine. 
One little flask of sacred oil. 
Saved unpolluted from the spoil 

Supplied the light divine. 

Full twenty centuries have rolled 

The gulf of Time adown. 
Since those heroic Maccabees, 
The victims of Epiphanes, 

Assumed the martyr's crown. 

And still the Festival of Lights 

Recalls those deeds of 3'Ore 
That make our history's page sublime 

And live for evermore. 

Marion Hartog. 



Chanukah in Russia , IQO^ 



i 



CET high the light where all may see — 

*^ The flame that since two thousand years 

Has burned — now dim with misery. 

A light of mourning it appears; 
Stand firm! still flows the cruse divine, 
Our star with dazzling ray shall shine. 

Raise up the flag! Our doubting hearts 
Too long have kept it closely furled ; 

Meekness and fear have played their parts, 
Valour alone can tame the world . 

And show, in might of unity, 

That like our sires we shall be free. 

E. L. Levetus. 

328 



THE JEWISH YEAR 



Cha?iukah 

I ITTLE candles shed your light 

And illuminate our night; 
Tell your tale of conquests won, 
Of Judea's warrior son ; 
Of the faith-born wondrous power, 
Granted in our darkest hour ; 
Speak of him who made us free, 
Israel's champion — Maccabee. 

What is slav'ry's iron chain 
To the thrall of heart and brain? 
What's the tyrant's rage so blind, 
To the listless human mind ? 
Or the champion's cunning skill, 
To the independent will? 
Which is worse — a cell's dim light, 
Or the soul's perpetual night? 

Wake, then, rouse then candles bright, 
Sleeping Israel, with your light! 
Tell them that our chains of old 
Meant but passing pains untold. 
But our fetters forged each day, 
Are blots we must wipe away; 
Had we courage to be free, 
Would we need a Maccabee? 

Margaret Freeman. 



Chanukah 

TTHE hand of Time moves o'er the dial, 

And guides the seasons through the year; 
It drives the sorrow from our hearts — 
Behold — the Feast of Lights is here! 

329 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The Feast of Lights — old mem'ries stir, 
And pride within our breast soars high, 

We live again in ancient days, 
When Judah's glory was the cry. 

We see the Maccabees of old 

Bow low within the house of God; 

Where Syrian hands defiled the halls, 
Where Israel's patriarchs had trod. 

Now light we tapers for their deeds; 

Awak'ning in each heart a prayer, 
That we may like the Maccabees 

The glory and the valor share. 

The Feast of Lights — a time when hope 
Throws off the yoke of sorrow's rod, 

To wing its way above the flames 
That leap to glory and to God ! 

Cecilia G. Gerson. 

M-q'oz Tsur Yeshuosi 
{A Chanukah Hymn) 

IVyilGHTY, praised beyond compare, 
^ Rock of my salvation, 

Build again my house of pray'r 

For Thy habitation! 
Haste my restoration ; let a ransomed nation ' 

Joyful sing 

To its King 
Psalms of dedication ! 

Woe was mine in Egypt-land 

(Tyrant kings enslaved me) 
Till Thy mighty, outstretched Hand 

From oppression saved me. 
Pharaoh, rash pursuing, vowed my swift undoing; 

Soon, his host 

That proud boast 
'Neath the waves was rueing! 

330 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

To Thy Holy Hill, the way 

Mad'st Thou clear before me; 
With false gods I went astray — 

Foes to exile bore me. 
Torn from all I cherished, almost had I perished; 

Babylon fell, 

Zerubabel 
Bad'st Thou to restore me! 

Then the vengeful Hamanjwrought 
Subtly to betray me; 
In his snare himself he caught — 

He that plann'd to slay me. 
(Haled from Esther's palace, hanged on his own 
gallows ! ) 

Seal and ring 

Persia's king 

Gave Thy servant zealous. 

When the brave Asmoneans broke 

Javan's chain in sunder, 
Through the holy oil, Thy folk 

Didst Thou show a wonder. 
Ever full remain-ed the vessel unprofan-ed; 

These eight days. 

Lights and praise 
Therefore, were ordain-ed. 

Lord, Thy Holy Arm make bare. 

Speed my restoration ; 
Be my martyr's blood Thy care — 

Judge each guilty nation. 
Long Is my probation ; sore my tribulation ; 

Bid, from Heaven, 

Thy shepherds seven, 
Haste to my salvation ! 

Translated by Solomon Solis Cohen. 



331 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Chanukah 

I 

WE welcome thee joyfully, glorious night, 
We hail thee with pleasure, O Chanukah light! 
Its lustre so brilliant, invites us to joy. 
Invites us to praise Him, the great Adonoy. 

He was our Redeemer in dark days of old, 
When Syria's mad ruler, proud, cruel, and bold, 
Proclaimed through Judea: "Your God I defy; 
Bow down to my idols and worship — or die!" 

Of brave, pious martyrs these bright candles tell. 
Who yielded their soul, praying: "Hear, Israel!" 
Of Hannah, the mother and seven sons so dear. 
Who sealed with their life-blood their faith without 
fear. 

But Israel's God never slumbers nor sleeps. 
He ever is near him who mournfully weeps. 
He saw our oppression, and, hearing our pleas, 
Awakened, to save us the brave Maccabees. 

Be welcome then, welcome, O glorious night, 
We hail thee with pleasure, O Chanukah light! 
Its lustre, so brilliant invites us to joy. 
Invites us to praise Him the great Adonoy! 

II 

Let our grateful anthems ring, 

Joyous songs and gladsome lays, 
To our God and Heavenly King, 
Sing His glory! Sound His praise! 
He who never sleepeth 
Israel safely keepeth, 
Hears their cry, from on high. 
E'er when Judah weepeth. 

332 



I 



THE JEWISH. YEAR 

Syria's mad and mighty host 
Fiercely down upon us swept. 

To destroy us was their boast; 

Israel trembled, Judah wept! 
But behold ! salvation 
God wrought for our nation, 

Sending light, clear and bright, 
'Midst our tribulation. 

"Feast of Lights" — O 'glorious name! 

Cast thy rays o'er land and seas; 
Kindle in all hearts the flame 
That inspired the Maccabees; 
Heroes to be ever. 
Cowards, traitors — never ! 
And to love God above. 

Right and truth forever. 

Louis Stern. 



Vashti 

TN all great Shushan's palaces was there 

Not one, O Vashti, knowing thee so well. 
Poor uncrowned queen, that he the world could 
tell 
How thou wert pure and loyal-souled as fair? 
How it was love which made thee bold to dare 
Refuse the shame which madmen would compel? 
Not one, who saw the bitter tears that fell 
And heard thy cry heart-rending on the air: 

"Ah me ! My Lord could not this thing have meant ! 
He well might loathe me ever, if I go 
Before these drunken princes as a show. 

I am his queen ; I come of king's descent, 
I will not let him bring our crown so low; 

He will but bless me when he doth repent!" 

Helen Hunt Jackson. 

333 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



A Purim Poem 

YOU know the tale of Queen Esther, 

The Queen so well named the "Star — " 
And of Mordecai, humble and faithful, 

Who guided her life from afar; 
Not alone with your lips, dear children, 

The beautiful story re-tell — 
Let your hearts learn the lesson so noble, 

Till the story be yours as well. 

Long, long ago lived Queen Esther! 

But you must be Esthers too, 
You maidens with eyes so thoughtful, 

Who bear the proud name of Jew ! 
With a heart that is faithful and fearless, 

And a trust that is sacred and strong, 
You must stand for the right, though you suffer- 

You must battle against the wrong. 

And you boys with hearts a-flaming 

With the dawn of your manhood's might, 
Remember how Mordecai humble 

Stood firm for his faith — and the right! 
How, clad in sackcloth and ashes, 

As he sat in the dust by the gate, 
Yet he pointed the way to Queen Esther 

To suffer, and dare, and be great. 

You know how the old story ended — 

How Haman the dastard at last 
Met the fate he had planned for another — 

And Israel's danger was past! 
But Israel needs now, as ever. 

Strong hearts that are fearless and true — 
And her honor that Mordecai guarded 

Is left now, dear children, with you. 

334 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Be fearless! Nay, why should you falter, 

When God ever guardeth the right? . 
Be loyal ! The faith of your fathers 

Hath shown through dark years like a light! 
And if ever you tire in the struggle, 

And the right seems o'ercome and afar — 
Then remember the old Purim story, 

The story of Esther the "Star." 

Isabella R. Hess. 



Esther ' 

C WEET Jewish maid, crown'd with a mon- 
arch's love. 

Thy gentle grace 
Sought for no glory, for no sov'reign pow'r, 

No pride of place. 
"If thy handmaiden hath good favour found 

In the king's eyes. 
Grant but my people's lives (e'en tho' I be 

The sacrifice) ; 
For we are sold, my people and myself, 

To cruel foe. 
How can I bear to see my kindred's wrong, 

My race's woe?" 
So thou art honoured and thy name shall live 

While Time shall be, 
O queenly heart! Our homage and our love 

We bring to thee. 

Florence Weisberg. 

Maid of Persia 

jV/TAID of Persia, Myrtle named. 
For thy graces rightly famed, 
Esther, ours for evermore. 
Queen to-day from oldest yore — 
Ere we leave thee let thy grace 
Linger w^ith us for a space. 

335 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Israel's maidens be like thee, 
Holding fast fidelity 
To the cause of Israel, 
That they yield not to the spell 
Of the glitter and the gold 
Shining in another fold. 

Oh, our hearts are thine to-day 
For the dread thou didst allay, 
For the plot of Haman foiled 
That our race was not despoiled. 
For the worth of Mordecai 
Who the plotters did defy. 

Let thy spirit be our share 

Through whatever lands we fare; 

Mordecai and Esther be 

Lord and queen eternally 

In the heart of man and maid, 

Making Israel unafraid. 

Of "the foe that stalks by night, 
Of the fowlers luring might," 
Of the envy and the hate 
Which aU centuries relate. 
Maid of Juda, daughter dear, 
Be thy spirit ever near. 

Harry Weiss. 



Esther 

A FACE more vivid than he dreamed who drew 
'**' Thy portrait in that thrilling tale of old ! 
Dead queen, we see thee still, thy beauty cold 
As beautiful ; thy dauntless heart which knew 
No fear, — not even of a king who slew 

At pleasure; maiden heart which was not sold, 
Though all the maiden flesh the king's red gold 
Did buy! The loyal daughter of the Jew, 

336 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

No hour saw thee forget his misery; 

Thou wert not queen until thy race went free; 
Yet thoughtful hearts, that ponder slow and deep, 

Find doubtful reverence at last for thee; 
Thou heldest thy race too dear, thyself too cheap; 
Honor no second place for truth can keep. 

Helen Hunt Jackson. 



Purim 

QUEEN ESTHER— so the Scriptures say- 
Fasted and prayed for many a day; 
For Haman would her people slay, 
On Purim. 

Of her good deeds I need not tell, 

Nor how she did the riots quell ; 
Suffice to know she felt quite well. 
On Purim. 

And Haman was straightway bereft 
Of wealth acquired by fraud and theft; 
In fact, he was quite badly left 
On Purim. 

This tale has run for quite a time, 
And chestnut-cries may blast my rhyme. 
Bad verse, howe'er, is not a crime. 
On Purirn. 

And many things we never do. 
And many sights we seldom view, 
Are done and seen — enjoyed, too. 
On Purim. 

The ultra-rabbi, now the style. 
And th' old-time rabbi without guile, 
May greet each other with a smile, 
On Purim. 

337 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The pious man, religion's prop, 
Who lectures when and how to stop, 
May take, himself, an extra drop, 
On Purim. 

The youth who does for "Ethics" pine, 
And of our Faith says: *' 'Tis not mine," 
Is, strange enough, well up in line 
On Purim. 

And editors, who never pray, 
Who "squeech" each other every day, 
Put hate and rancor far away. 
On Purim. 

The rich relax, the poor receive, 
The mourners smile and cease to grieve. 
And all our misdeeds we retrieve (?) 
On Purim. 

Long live Queen Esther's glorious fame ; 
For Jews in practice, Jews in name, 
All seem to get there, just the same. 
On Purim. 



I 



Label. 



In Shushan 

I 

/^'ER lordly Shushan's terrac'd walls 

^^ The starry cloak of midnight falls, 
And naught doth break the solemn spell 
Save the soft note of Philomel, 
Or some faint fountain's silvery tongue 
Lulling the gardens with its song. 
The yellow moon doth rule the sky 
And gild the dark-blue dome on high. 
And o'er the marble stairways cold 
A robe of tissue, woof'd with gold, 

338 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Doth seem to cling, a garment rare 
Enmantling shoulders lustrous fair! 
The King doth wassail hold to-night — 
For him the hours have pinions light; 

H 

The gladding bounty of the vine 

He pledges in the ruddy wine, 

And rears his dripping goblet high 

To Love and Friendship's unity. 

His arm encircling Haman's neck. 

He views with many a nod and beck 

O'er purple rugs the dancers fly 

In mazy rounds of revelry. 

Then sweetest minstrels tune their song, 

And the gold lamps with faltering ray 

In lovelier visions fade away, 
As blessed legions float along 
Of gods and heroes who began 

The wars of Darkness and of Light, 

Of dew-ey'd Morn and sullen Night, 
Of Ormuzd fair and Ahriman. 

Ill 

A distant palace casement by 

Queen Esther pauses wearily, 

And gazes toward the shadowy fields 

Of silent orbs, where clustering shields 

Gleam faint — Heaven's warriors' loosen'd mail 

By camp fires glinting far and pale. 

Sweetly the rose-tint night-wind sues 

To know her secret, as it woos 

With kisses passion-warm and quick 

The languish'd lilies of her cheek. 

Ah, many fair flowers on earth there be, 

But never a flower so fair as she! 

And thus upon the midnight air 

Wing'd skyward goes her hallow'd prayer; 

339 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

"Sweet Lord of Heaven! who aye hast shown 

Thy people grace, and from Thy throne, 

Encircled with angelic throngs, 

Hast heard their prayers and healed their wrongs, 

IV 

Great God of Israel's love and mine, 

When on the morrow 'fore the King, 

I dare my people's suit to bring 
Touch thou my lips with power divine; 
O make my presence balmy-sweet, 
That from his purpl'd, royal seat. 
The king shall smile and in his grace 
Undo the sorrows of my race. 
Grant, Lord ! that like yon moon serene 

That sits enthron'd twixt earth and sky, 

And 'neath her sapphire canopy 
Doth cheer the night, a blessed queen, 
I, too, may be twixt those who haste 

To bring my people to the dust 

And Thee, sweet Heaven, with all thy host, 
A Queen as bright and calm and chaste, 

As peerless, star-soul'd and as true, 
As yon fair journeyer in the waste 

Of the deep-bosom'd, endless blue!" 

E. Yancey Cohen. 



Purtm 

t7ROM Shushan's royal palace came the edict dread 

•■• and dark; 

"Exterminate God's chosen race, crush out life's vital 

spark." 
This heard the youth and trembled, and the hoary 

head was bowed, 
And in sackcloth and in ashes the faithful mourned 

aloud. 

340 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

But lo! a maiden standeth now in royal garments 

dressed, 
Though on her youthful brow a crown — 'tis sadness, 

fills her breast; 
The King upon his royal throne beholds that maiden 

fair, 
The golden sceptre holdeth forth, and calls Queen 

Esther there. 

*'What wilt thou, Oh, Queen Esther? and what is 

thy behest? 
Though e'en 'twere half my kingdom, it should be 

at thy request." 
Then gently spake the maiden, as she stands In beauty 

there: 
"Let the King and Haman come to-day to the banquet 

I prepare." 

While thus with joy they feasted, and the wine cup 

held on high. 
Again the King on Esther urged to tell her thoughts 

and why? 
Upon her brow a shadow dark had cast its gloom this 

day. 
But with a smile, then, Esther spake, and courage 

found to say: 

"If I have pleased my lord the King and found grace 

in his eyes, 
I beg that he will not refuse, or my request despise; 
And that once more to-morrow, when a banquet I 

prepare. 
The King and Haman shall again, with wine and song 

be there. 
And then shall my petition before the King be laid, 
And if 'tis granted, not in vain, hath Esther, fasting, 

prayed." 

341 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

'Tis night! and though on royal couch Ahashveiosh 

now lies, 
He vainly woos the god of sleep to close his weary 

eyes. 
"Bring in the chronicled events," the King now gives 

command, 
"And thus amuse my waking thoughts with actions, 

as they stand." 

Then heard the King how Mordecai his life from ruf- 
fian spared, 

"What honor has been done for this?" "Yet nothing," 
they declared. 

Then asked the King of Haman, "What shall in re- 
ward be done 

To him who hath my royal grace and honor justly 
won.f^ 

And when the monarch heard^ he cried, "Take Morde- 
cai the Jew, 

And all the honors thou hast planned, make haste thee, 
quick to do." 

Now at the second banquet. Queen Esther makes re- 
quest : 

"I ask my life from out thy hand, My people at be- 
quest. 

"For we are sold! both I and they; not for bondman 

o'er the land, 
But utterly to be destroyed, cast out, and slain, 'tis 

planned." 
Then rose the King in fury: "Whose bold plan this?" 

he cried, 
"Behold him!" whispers Esther, "for 'tis Haman, at 

thy side." 

"Appease mine anger, let him hang full fifty cubits 

high!" 
'Tis done; and messengers off speed, the Jews' release 

is nigh. 

342 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Their sorrow now to joy is turned, and long shall 

Esther's name 
Illumined shine in Israel's heart with faith's undying 

fame. 

Myrtilla E. Mitchell. 



Mordecai 
Esther vii. l-io; viii. 15 

**\TOW say, my queen," the monarch cries, 

"What boon dost thou demand ? 
Be it the half of my kingdom's worth, 
'Tis given to thy hand." 

**0 king, had all my race been sold 

To bondage and to shame. 
No murmur from my lip had passed 

My sovereign's deed to blame; 

*'But sold to slaughter, doomed to death, 

I pour my humble prayer; 
Oh, let thy royal clemency 

My guiltless kindred spare!" 

"And who, my queen, hath dared the deed?" 

"Behold, our ruthless foe! 
'Tis Haman whets the murd'rous steel 

And aims the fatal blow." 

The king is wroth: the traitor shrinks; 

The stern command is given: 
Bound and condemned they bear him forth 

To feed the fowls of heaven. 

A gallows, by his impious hand 

For Mordecai designed. 
Receives the tyrant's struggling form. 

And gives him to the wind. 

343 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Haman, thy wife hath well foretold 

The dark intent will fail; 
Against Jehovah's chosen fold 

Thou never couldst prevail. 

Who comes? His costly garments wave 

In many a purple fold, 
Blest with the purest white; he wears 

A crown of burnished gold. 

It is the Jew — 'tis Mordecai, 

Type of his ransomed race; 
For shame is double honor given, 

And glory for disgrace. 

Such, Israel, is thy future lot, 

Purged in refining fires; 
Queens shall thy nursing mothers be, 

And kings thy nursing sires. 

And thou, in means and mercies rich, 

Loved Albion, happy land. 
For Judah bend the suppliant knee, 

And work with willing hand. 

Oh, help thine elder brother's need. 

Bid him thy blessings share. 
Nor let him perish at thy gate 

While thou hast bread to spare! 

Anonymous. 



Mordecai 

TWFAKE friends with him! He Is of royal line, 

Although he sits in rags. Not all of thine 
Array of splendor, pomp of high estate. 
Can buy him from his place within the gate, 
The King's gate of thy happiness, where he, 
Yes, even he, the Jew, remaineth free, 

344 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Never obeisance making, never scorn 
Betraying of thy silver and new-born 
Delight. Make friends with him, for unawares 
The charmed secret of thy joys he bears; 
Be glad, so long as his black sackcloth, late 
And early, thwarts thy sun ; for if in hate 
Thou plottest for his blood, thy own death cry, 
Not his, comes from the gallows cubits high. 

Helen Hunt Jackson. 



Purim 

^OME, quaff the brimming festal glass! 

Bring forth the good old cheer! 
For Esther's Feast has come at last, — 
Most gladsome in the year. 

And now, when hearts beat glad and free, 

Come gather all about. 
And tell once more how, long since, He 

Did put our foe to rout. 

Full oft has beauty ruled a land 

And held its sceptred sway ; 
Full often foiled th' avenging hand, 

And bade oppression stay. 

But ne'er did beauty so avail, 

As when fair Esther's charm 
'Gainst vengeful Haman did prevail 

To 'fend the Jews from harm. 

So all the dire impending woe 

That hovered o'er their head, 
Did light upon their ruthless foe 

And ruined him, instead. 

345 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And thus, throughout the ages long, 

In every land and clime, 
They chant an old thanksgiving song 

E'er mindful of that time. 

Yea, Israel's Guardian never sleeps, — 

No slumber to His eye! — 
But loving watch He ever keeps 

Upon his flock from high. 

C. David Matt. 



A Purim Retrospect 

I 

/^OME tell us the story again, 

You told us when we were j^oung, 
Of Esther, the great Jewish queen, 

And Haman — the one they hung; 
And how the tables were turned. 

And Mordecai came to be great, 
How he won the respect of the king, 

Though sprung from low estate. 

II 

We clustered around the broad table, 
On which all the dainties were spread, 

And the rays seemed as soft as moonbeams, 
From the seven star lamp overhead ; 

And we seemed once more to be children, 
Aglowing with youthful glee, 

The youngest — a baby of twenty, 

Perched up on his mother's knee. 

HI 

Well, father read out the Megillah, 
We knew it all, through and through, 

Though it's wonderful, how in that small book, 
One always finds something that's new; 

346 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

So we wept again where Esther 

Risked her own life to see the King, 

And cried "Bravo" when Haman was ordered 
Upon his own gallows to swing. 

IV 

But when we came to the hero, 

(Who used to sit out by the gate,) 
Led all over Shushan by Haman, — 

And robed in the king's own state, — 
We clapped our hands for wonder. 

How strangely things came about. 
And thought we could hear the thunder, 

That echoed the people's shout. 

V 

And then the ten sons of Haman, 

And those that rejoiced at the news — 
That ranged on the side of the wicked. 

And perished instead of the Jews — 
We thought how God in His wisdom 

His breath to each creature doth give. 
And 5^et how he blots out millions. 

That millions of others may live. 

VI 

Our reading and feasting had ended, 

And father looked wisely at all. 
And told us the lesson extended, 

That Esther's brave life did recall: — 
''The path of the righteous is ever 

God's vigilant care and cause, 
And honesty, virtue and justice, 

Are heaven's immutable laws. 

VII 

"The lowly shall rise from their thralldom. 
And sit on the kingly throne, 

347 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And God, in his infinite mercy, 

Will gather them for his own ; 
While those who sit in high places, 

And mingle not justice with power, 
Shall merit the wrath of th' Almighty 

And perish from that dread hour. 

VIII 

''The outward has nothing to boast of, 

Nor figure, nor color of skin, 
The image of God is implanted, 

Engraved on the heart within; 
The gift to rule self is to each one. 

To rule over many, to few; 
But a single brave heart may w^ork wonders, 

If only that one heart be true." 

W. S. Howard. 



Purim, IQOO 

nPHOU poor wan phantom of a vanished joy, 

Pale wandered from the East! Upon thy brow 

Hang once-fresh garlands, sadly withered now; 
Time's hand hath marred what it might not destroy, 

Darkened thy fame, and made thee almost dumb 
From cold neglect. Thy backward-gazing eyes 
See visions of dead happy pasts arise 

To mock thee with sweet laughter. Children come 
And w^onderingly look on one they loved. 

Who brought them gifts and pleasure and a tale 

That even Repetition could not stale, — 
Of Love triumphant, and of Hate removed, 

Now scatter ashes on thy reverend head, 

Israel forgets thee, Purim! thou art dead. 

Alice D. Braham. 



348 



THE JEWISH YEAR 



The Search for Leaven 

T IKE a tender, loving maiden 
Dusting her devoted room 
When her sweetheart she awaiteth, 
Often dreaming on her broom. 

So when stars beglamour heaven, 

And the vesper-prayer's said, 
On the eve before the Seder, 

Father takes some feathers, bread, 

Rag, and wooden spoon, and taper; 

And he breaks the bread in seven, 
And like the child with playthings, playing. 

He naively searches leaven. 

First he hides in nook the bread-crumbs, 

Then like Jason on the quest 
For the glorified golden fleeces, 

To the search for leaven, addrest, 

By the lighted mystic taper, 
He like one a-dreaming prays; 

God be blest for sanctifying 

Man with leaven-searching ways. 

Then he locks the lips in silence, 
Like a Bismarck guarding tongue. 

Lest the deep-laid scheme of statecraft, 
By an ill-timed word go wrong. 

And with gravest mien and broodings. 

Ferrets out each hiding hole, 
Where he laid the treasured bread-crumbs. 

Sweeps them to their burning goal. 

In the spoon, with tuft and feathers; 

Seals it with the rag, and lays 
All away until the morrow. 

When, ere burning it, he prays: 

349 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

"All the leaven of my dwelling, 

All I saw or did not see, 
All I did or didn't banish, 

Void, as dust of earth shall be." 

Then he muses on the Seder, 

Like a maid who dusts her room 

When her sweetheart she awaiteth, 
Often dreaming on the broom. 

Alter Abelson. 



The Moral of It 

CO once more the ancient story lifts its voice un- 

^ dulled by age — 

While the pyramids stand dimly strewn across the 

lettered page, 
And we hear the slave gangs rattling loud their chains 

of vassalage — , 

How the sea's avenging fury purged the immemorial 

wrong 
How the fire cloud's angel pinions hovered o'er the 

nomad throng; 
Till at last their wondering quavers struggled into 

paean song. 

And the story has a sequel, and the sequel tears may 

tell. 
How across the desert ages journeyed footsore Israel, 
Ran the gauntlet of the nations, midst the scourgers' 

carrion-yell. 

But the shrewd Ahasuerus* toughened with each 
strictest test, 

Lingered round the Gentile's back-door, till the Gen- 
tile acquiesced 

And from contraband intruder made him an unwel- 
come guest. 

*The legendary name of the Wandering Jew. 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

For the world grew self-respecting, ordered things 
w^ith light and law, 

Gave the spoiler shorter tether, closer pared the vul- 
ture's claw, 

And announced the grand commandment. Would'st 
thou bricks, then give the straw. 

Has thy tree of life, emplanted decade-deep in sun- 
nier earth, — 

Have thy virtue's olive branches, Judah, gained in 
girth and worth ? 

Is thy warrant of survival still the same that gave 
thee birth? 

Walk we straighter-backed through Edom since the 
lightening of the yoke? 

Lives the faith, the self-surrender that from stake and 
gibbet spoke? 

Is the message of Jeshurun more than riddling equi- 
voque ? 

Faith and message waned to shadows, self-deceiving, 

self-belied, 
Sapless mockery of substance, time's long-suffering 

petrified : 
May the flesh not live for ever once the soul itself has 
' died ? 

So w^e move, and move at random, know not when to 

leap or halt. 
Pause and hear the by-word "sluggard," leap, and 

turn a somersault. 
And w^e snarl, with pointing fingers: yours — and j'ours 

— and yours the fault. 

Hence the heretic's revilings, rants of rabid tribalist, 
Each would be the true adherent, each the only loyal- 
ist; 
Matters it who makes the mischief, zealot or con- 
venticlist ? 

351 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Zion listening 'midst her ruins lifts her haggard face * 

and wan, 
Queries: lives the recollection martyr-years have 

handed on? 
Think they of the vows that echo from the brooks of 

Babylon ? 

Whose the shame, and whose the sorrow? Men and | 

ages we condemn, 
Cavil at the courtly cities, rail against the tents of 

Shem ; 
Whose the blame, if in our bosoms dwells a dead 

Jerusalem? Samuel Gordon. j 

The Seder 

D ING in the glorious festal-tide 
**■ ^ That dawns o'er land and sea, 
Proclaim the story far and wide 
That made a people free. 

A wondrous tale and often told, 

Yet never dim it grows. 
And now as in the days of old 

No fading light It knows. 

But ever fresh and bright it comes 

Across the moving years. 
And gayly In our festive homes 

Rings welcome In our ears. 

A table set In spotless white 

With gladsome hearts around, 
A hallowed scene of joy and light 

As nowhere else Is found. 

The symbols of our feast In line 

Before our view are spread, 
The bitter herb and mystic wine. 

The Paschal meat and bread. 



352 



1 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Then from the book of ancient lore 

The tale again is told, 
With heightened tone and full rich store 

Of legend quaint and old. 

How Israel came to Egypt's land 
And through long years did bide, 

How on them Pharaoh laid his hand 
In all his godless pride. 

Till God, He heard their bitter cry, 
And swift His vengeance wrought, 

'Mid signs and wonders from on high 
The tyrant low was brought. 

God led them on to victory: 
Freedom crowned their day, 

They marched away a people free 
With banners high and gay. 

And so with praise to God and song, 

Israel far and wide 
Remembers through the ages long 

This happy festal-tide. 



Seder-Night 



J. F. 



DROSAIC miles of streets stretch all round, 
Astir with restless, hurried life and spanned 
By arches that with thund'rous trains resound. 

And throbbing wires that galvanize the land; 

Gin-palaces in tawdry splendor stand ; 
The newsboys shriek of mangled bodies found ; 

The last burlesque is playing in the Strand — 
In modern prose all poetry seems drowned. 
Yet in ten thousand homes this April night 

An ancient People celebrates its birth 

353 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

To Freedom, with a reverential mirth, 
With customs quaint and many a hoary rite, 
Waiting until, its tarnished glories bright, 

Its God shall be the God of all the earth. 

Israel Zangwill. 

Passover 

U'ROM Egypt once, 'mid storm and flame, 
"*■ Redeemed the hosts of Judah came. 

What hymns triumphant did they raise 
The God of freedom high to praise. 

As 'mid the parting waters' flow 
In terror sank the wily foe ! 

We break the bread, we drink the wine, 
In memory of that olden time. 

We sing the festal melodies 
That swell along the centuries. 

The snow-white cloth, the lights are here, 
All peace and joy — love's atmosphere. 

O Judah, cherish long the thought 
That not for feasting was this wrought; 

But ever struggling to be free. 

In Pesach's fragrant text for thee! 

Be free, no spirit bondage more! 

Be free — and burst the prison door! 

Be free — no hypocrite lies! 
Be free — no empty mockeries. 

Dost hear again the word divine? 
**Set free the spirit — it is Mine." 

Abram S. Isaacs. 

354 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

A Passover Hymn from the Haggada 

{El Beneh) 

r\ ! speed'ly build Thy temple shrine, 
^^^ Thy holy House restore, 
And send again Thy light divine, 

As in the days of yore. 
O Thou ! whose special care we are 

Where'er our lot be cast 
Become again our guiding star 

As in the distant past. 

O ! build again a firmer throne 

For Judah's royal race, 
And give his sceptre rule alone 

And pour on him Thy grace, 
His sons ingather to their fold. 

Far scattered and away, 
And in his realm let Justice hold 

Her firm triumphant sway! 

But more than Temple, shrine, or dome. 

Within our hearts build sure 
For Thee, O Lord, a dwelling home 

Predestined to endure. 
And vouchsafe, Lord, the world all o'er, 

A brighter day to shine, 
And in one bond, forever more 

All humankind entwine. 

J. F. 

Passover 
The First Declaration of Independence 

HPHE sullen ice has crept from sunny fields, 

The conflict of the elements is passed ! 
Again the spring its wealth of verdure yields. 
The probing sun has conquered frost at last! 

355 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

'Tis the Passover of reviving earth, 

The longed for resurrection of its charms, 

Each peeping bud a type of Freedom's birth, — 
A conquest each o'er winter's dread alarms. 

All, all the sunnj^ joys till now concealed. 
Are prototypes of Liberty's blest morn 

When Israel's rescue first that truth revealed, — 
**To free and equal rights all men are born!" 

Infallible as Nature in her round 

Emancipates herself from winter's reign, 

So shall the clarion note of Freedom sound 
And all the world the burden proud sustain. 

Oh mankind hear! — and to all those proclaim 
Who languish for the light of Freedom's sun, — 

Let all the Nations join the glad acclaim, — 
"Our God is One — Humanity is One!" 

Deborah Kleinert Janowitz. 



By the Red Sea 

{Hymn for the Seventh Day of Passover) 

YT/HEN as a wall the sea 
^^ In heaps uplifted lay, 
A new song unto Thee 

Sang the redeemed that day. 

Thou didst in his deceit. 
Overwhelm the Egyptian's feet, 
While Israel's footsteps fleet 
How beautiful were they. 

Jeshurun! All w^ho see 
Thy glorv crv to Thee: 
"Who like thy God can be?" 
Thus even our foes did say. 

356 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

O let Thy banner soar 
The scattered remnants o'er, 
And gather them once more, 
Like ours on harvest-day. 

Who bear through all their line 
Thy covenant's holy sign, 
And in Thy name divine 
Are sanctified alway. 

Let all the world behold 
Their token prized of old, 
Who on their garment's fold 
The thread of blue display. 

Be then the truth made known 
From whom, and whom alone. 
The twisted fringe is shown. 
The covenant kept this day. 

O let them, sanctified, 
Once more with Thee abide, 
Their sunshine far and wide 
And chase the clouds away. 

The well-beloved declare 
Thy praise in song and prayer; 
**Who can with Thee compare, 
O Lord of Hosts?" they say. 

When as a wall the sea 

In heaps uplifted lay, 
A new song unto Thee, 

Sang the redeemed that day. 

JUDAH Ha-LeVI. 

(Translated by Alice Lucas.) 



357 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



The All Father's Word 

"VY/HEN ransomed Israel saw the returning sea 
^^ O'erwhelm the vast array of Pharaoh's pride, 
And raised exultant hymn above the tide : — 

"Lord God eternal who is like to Thee, 

Awful in praises, working wondrously!" 

God silent bode; but when His angels vied 
With men in choir antiphonal, and cried : — 

**His outstretched arm hath set His children free!" 
And heaven like earth rocked with tumultuous song, 
God spake rebuking; and the shamed, mute throng, 

Awe-swept and trembling, glimpsed a vision new 
Of Love and Pity Infinite, as they heard 
The fathomless sorrow of the All Father's word : 

''Peace. They that perish are My children too." 

Emily Solis-Cohen, Jr. 

The Feast of Freedom 

I REMEMBER in my childhood 
From my grandfather I heard 
Charming tales of gone-by ages 
That my soul so deeply stirred. 

Charming tales of ancient sages 
That I felt, I knew were true; 

Stories of the hoary ages 

That remain forever new. . . . 

Of the Pesach-days he told me. 
Days that joy and sunshine bring; 

Of the Festival of Freedom, 

Of Revival and of Spring. . . . 

Of the slave-people in Egypt, 
Whose hot blood so rashly spilt, 

Soaked into cold bricks and mortar 
Of the fortresses they built. 

358 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

How on them, the God-forsaken, 

After gloomy wintry days, 
Shone at last the rays of freedom, 

Heaven's bright and cheerful rays. 

How among them rose a leader, 

Star-like in a gloomy night. 
And he pleaded for their freedom, 

And he crushed a tyrant's might. 

How he taught the fettered people 
Not in vain their blood to spill. 

Turning bondmen into freemen, 
Men of honor and of will. 

How the people's march to Freedom 
Could no despot's might restrain, 

Till before their will resistless 
Stormy ocean oped in twain. . . . 

"Then it was our people's Spring-time, 
After which a Summer came. 

Followed by a golden harvest. 

Free from yoke and free from shame." 

"Grand-sire, dear," I asked enraptured, 
"How long did that Summer last?" 

But he sadly gazed and pondered, 
And he answered me at last. 

"Child, it was a long, bright Summer, 

But a winter came again. 
Came with cold, and snow, and showers. 

With its gales of grief and pain. 

"Frost and tempest-strife, contention — 
Raged once more in every part. 

Stealing into souls and freezing 
Will and hope in every heart. 

359 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

"Furious storm once more dispersed us; 

Israel rendered free and great, 
Into lands of cruel despots 

Went to face a bondman's fate. ..." 

"Grand-sire, dear, why does this Winter 
Seem so endless, then?" — I sighed — 

And two crystal tears were trembling 
In his eyes, when he replied. 

"Yes, my boy, it seems so endless, 

But it cannot, will not be; 
Israel will not slave for ever, 

One day, child, he will be free. 

"In his soul will re-awaken 

Courage, will, and pride, and might ; 

Freedom's sunrise must needs follow 
Israel's starless exile night. 

"But till then, ere Spring's arrival — • 
For the winter's steps are slow — 

Pesach is a sweet remembrance 
Of a spring of long ago. ..." 

P. M. Raskin. 



Pesach Le^ Osid 

{The Passover of the Future) 

Israel in fetters still! The prophet's wand 
Shall stretch across the tyrant's hapless land, 
And prison doors shall straightway open wide, 
And barring waters shall like walls divide, 
To let the Lord's redeemed pass dry-shod o'er 
And reach a brighter, freer, friendlier shore. 
The angel that unseen spreads seeds of death 
And on each house corrupt pours poisoned breath 

360 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Shall pass the homes of God's appointed by 

And none that mark their lintel-posts shall die. 

Hope paints this vision thus in golden hue 

And, deathless as Hope, doth Faith bespeak it true, 

Affliction's bread shall yield to plenty's leaven, 

The clouds shall pass and earth shall grow like heaven. 

Anonymous. 

The Omer 

CO, Lord, teach us to number our days. 

That our hearts in the process grow wise. 
But what is there for man to appraise? — 

A measure of grain 

And a measure of pain. 
And the end? The dead chaff from the sheaf? 
So this trouble leaps forth to the skies; 
When Death holds us in wintry embrace, 
Shall we gaze, O our God, on Thy face ? 
Lo, the Spring to our craving replies, 

And the bud and the leaf 

Are the ground of belief 
That the soul, spite of dying, ne'er dies, 
Takes new life in God's springtime again. 

M. M. 



Sfere 



* 



I ASKED my Muse had she any objection . 

To laughing with me, — not a word for reply! 
You see, it is Sfere, our time for dejection 
And can a Jew laugh when the rule is to cry? 

You laughed then you say? 'tis a sound to affright one 
In Jewish delight, what is worthy the name? 

The laugh of a Jew it is never a right one, 

For laughing and groaning with him are the same. 

* Sephira, a period of mourning commemorating the disasters to Israel 
during the Crusades. 

361 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

You thought there was zest in the Jewish existence ? 

You deemed that the star of a Jew could be kind ? 
The spring calls and beckons with gracious insistence, 

Jew, — sit down in sackcloth and weep yourself blind ! 

The garden is green and the woodland rejoices; 

How cool are the breezes, with fragrance how blent ; 
But Spring calls not you with her thousand sweet 
voices ; 

With you it is Sfere, — sit still and lament. 

The beautiful summer, this life's consolation. 
In moaning and sighing glides quickly away, 

What hope can it of^er to one of my nation? 

What joy can he find in the splendors of May? 

Morris Rosenfeld. 

The Covenant of Sinai 

^ T O, this is the law that I gave you. 

Who called you to honor My name: 
(From the sweltering Nile did I bring you 

And lead you by cloud and by rain, 
Even here unto this lonely Horeb, 
Where I, all enthroned do abide) 
That 5^ou might be known as my people, 
Espoused unto me as a bride. 

O'er shimmering plains have I led you 

As caravans pilgriming south, 
'Mid swirling simoons and sand-storms 

To languish and thirst in the drought. 
I led your host steadily onward — 

And the walls of the Red Sea I clove 
Lest ye halt a day in your journey, 

Fear-stricken as sheep in a drove. 

And here have I brought you to Sinai 
Where the silence and awe of the hills 

362 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Descends as the night with its terror, 

And the void with its grim darkness fills — 

That here all alone and a-trembling 
You may list to the words that I speak: 

Though My words ride the wind and the thunder 
Yet the contrite of heart do I seek. 

And ye have I raised as an emblem 

And made you My sign to the world ; 
Wherever ye dwell, do I sojourn, 

And there is My purpose unfurled: 
For you are My law to the peoples; 

Your ways are the paths I have trod — 
In you is revealed My own being 

And through you Man knows I am God. 

My glory is hung on these mountains, 

That 'neath them, encamped you may see 
The luminous tables I've graven 

With truth that will make all men free. ■ / 
For you I turned flint into fountains 

Whose waters o'er thirsty fields rolled — 
You are Mine, e'en though you belie Me ; 

You are Mine whom I summoned of old. 

You are Mine, though I load you with burdens 

And lash you with woe and wnth pain. 
I will send you from hence to all peoples. 

To hunger and want to be slain. 
I charge you to go among nations 

And teach both the high and the meek, 
That I am the I am Eternal 

And those who seek Me do I seek. 

I gave you these tables of granite 
And the letters of each are writ large; 

And you are to bear them and do them 
Forever to keep them in charge ; 

To die for them, yea, if It must be, 

363 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

But never to sell them for pelf — 
But the law that is largest among them 
Is that law which each makes for himself. 

Oh, hear as this old mountain rumbles 

As if it were shivering with dread. 
To the living I call as my servants, 

Who bury their past and their dead: 
Who serves each one in his fashion, 

In justice and love, I decree 
Is living My law among peoples 

And barkened forever to Me. 

Joseph Leiser. 



What Praise Is on Our Lips? 



W^ 



''HAT praise is on our lips, what cheer 
To Him, who sitteth on His throne? 
Firm master of the changing year. 

Who leads us on from zone to zone. 
He gave to us His sacred cause — 
The practice of His ancient laws. 

From lands far off our fathers came. 
Lone pilgrims of a thousand years, 

To bear the burden of a name 

Amid new ways and unlaid fears — 

Still rings His message and His cause: 

To teach all men His sacred laws. 

No warring hosts our grand-sires marched. 
Sword-bound and panting for the spoil, 

Long suffering from want, and parched. 

They mixed their heart throbs with the soil 

That here, beneath these skies, His cause 

Might live in men and be their laws. 

364 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

The law of love was in their heart, 

Made warm through grief, grown strong through 
pain, 
They mingled at the wharf and mart 

Unweaponing the strife of gain — 
To make all men uphold His cause 
And write upon their hearts His laws. 

Long years are done. And we this day 

Praise Him who prospered land and men; 

Our star of glory fades away 
To spaces hidden from our ken, 

Unless each one espouse His cause. 

Whose love gave us the Book of Laws. 

O Lord, who guided Israel's host 

Across strange seas, to shores unknown, 

Without Thee all our hope is lost 

And seaward all our pomp is blown: — 

Still stands the edict of His cause 

Proclaimed of old in Sinai's laws. 

Joseph Leiser. 

The Heavenly Light 
Shevuoth 

Vy/HEN Israel in the wilderness . 
^^ Had fled from Pharaoh's cruel might, 
The Eternal sent, to lead them on, 
A cloud by day, a fire by night. 

And, guided by that heavenly flame. 

The beacon from Jehovah's hand, 
The chosen people safely reached 

Their destined goal, the promised land. 

Yet not alone in days of yore 

Has God his wondrous mercies shown, 

For still He grants to all mankind 
A glorious light to lead them on. 

365 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

A lamp of radiant, glowing hue, 

By Israel borne in every clime, 
Through fire and flood, through tears and blood. 

With courage grand and faith sublime. 

When all the world was steeped in sin. 
The Hebrews braved the nations' wrath 

And nobly followed still the guide 
That led them on in virtue's path. 

That beacon is the Decalogue, 

Proclaimed from Sinai's flaming height, 
And burning, as each age rolls by. 

With purer, grander, holier light. 

Oh glorious flame! Thy sparkling beams 
With radiant splendour shine to-day; 

Nor time, nor change, nor tyrant's power 
Can quench or dim one holy ray. 

Oh, heavenly lamp! Thy light shall shine 
Till sin and hate from earth depart; 

Till wrong shall fail and right prevail. 
And justice rule the human heart. 

May that bright beacon guide us still. 
E'en like. God's own untiring hand. 

That we, when this life's storms are o'er, 
May reach with joy the heavenly land. 

Max Meyerhardt. 



Pentecost 

T\ OWN by the shining sea, 

Its swelling waves in sight — 
A bare unvarnished hall, 
Without, the working world 
Its daily tasks did fill; 

366 



TPIE JEWISH YEAR 



I stood within, and heard 
And watched the passing scene. 
It was that day of days, 
The birthday of the Law. 

An altar, rude of wood. 

Stood plainly fashioned forth, 

But pious hands had placed 

A silken curtain there. 

And 'neath its heavy folds 

In 'broidered velvet wound, 

And hung with silver chains. 

There stood the sacred Law, 

The parchment scroll of old. 

With its strange Hebrew script. 

The sunlight clear and strong 

That through the window shone, 

Like the Shekinah old, 

Looked just a sacred fire 

That burned about the ark, 

And seemed to wTite God's name„ 

A man of humble mien, 

And humbler still in garb. 

Stood forth and said the prayers, 

And read the scrolled Law; 

Tho poor and mean he was, 

Yet great and grand he seemed, 

All garmented and robed 

In a strange majesty; 

The ancient praying-shawl 

About his shoulders wrapt. 

And on his brow that look 

Of very priest of God — 

And presently there rose 

The people reverently. 

And stood with heads all bowed, 

While in a tone of awe, 

And in its ancient tongue, 

The Decalogue was read. 

367 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Then solemnly "Amen" 

Was said, as said of old, 

While candles slim and white 

Burned bright on either side, 

And two most reverent men 

A guard of honor stood. 

The mean hall fell away — 

The people disappeared — 

The sounds all hushed and died; 

But round about me closed 

The sunlight shining full 

Like spirit of the Lord. 

I saw the lightning's flash, 

I heard the thunder roll; 

The strange, lone mountain peak 

In Eastern desert sand 

Rose plain before my eyes; 

I felt the heaving earth 

About Mount Sinai's feet, 

While trembling slaves made free 

Stood ready to be men. 

And vowed their sacred oath 

To take the righteous Law; 

To teach it to all men, 

Through ages that might roll. 

And so this poor mean room 
That held me in a spell, 
Swelled to a grandeur vast, 
A temple great and rich, 
With altar of pure gold, 
That held a jewel rare 
And single in its worth. 
The men before me seemed 
To grow in statured height, 
To put an air and mien 
Of greatness and of power, 
Attendants on a Lord, 
Who owned the Jewel there — 

368 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Who felt and knew that they 
Were guardians safe and true, 
With privilege to bear 
The Treasure of the Lord. 

Annette Kohn. 



The Fast of Tebeth 

I O ! I recall the siege which fell on me : 
^ Within this month He struck me ; He destroyed 
With three blows; — cut me down and left me 
void ; — 
Now He hath made me weary utterly. 

He silenced on the eighth day all my throng; 

(Have I not for three things a fast proclaimed?) 
The King bade; write the law in Greek; they 
maimed, 

They ploughed on me; they made their furrows long. 

Upon the ninth day — wrath, disgrace, and shame! 

Stripped off was my fair robe in honor worn ; 

For he who gave sweet word# was surely torn: 
Ezra the scribe — yea, he of blessed name. 

The tenth day; then the seer was bidden: "Yea 
Write thee within the book of vision ; write 
This for remembrance ; now shalt thou indite 

For them despised and crushed this self-same day." 

Counting the months, within the tenth the woe 
And wail he wakened ; but the sorrow's smart — 
Its onward way was branded on my heart 

When one came saying: "The city is struck low." 

For these things I have scattered o'er me dust; 

O that a shaft had pierced mine heart that day! 

For such woe I would dig my grave ; — but nay, 
I wrought rebelliously : the Lord is just. 

369 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

I call Thee, Thou Who hast repentance nigh 
For mine .affliction ; lo ! my praying heed ; 
Hear my beseeching; my salvation speed; 

Hide Thee not at my sighing, at my cry. 

O moon of Tebeth! exceeding Is my sum 

Of pain therein, whea- His face changed for me. 
Yet, though I sinned, His goodness I shall see, 
Who saith: **Ye waves, but so far shall ye come." 
Joseph Bar Samuel Tob Elem. 
(Translated by Nina Davis.) 

Lines for the Ninth of Ab 

CHALL I sorrow, oh desolate city, 

^ For thy beauty and glory o'erthrown; 

Shall I sing the dread day of destruction. 

When thy sins thou didst dearly atone — 
When the Lord, from the place He had chosen, 

Withdrew the strong shield of His Name, 
And Its treasures were spoiled by the stranger, 

Its holiness given to shame — 
When the shrieks of the daughters of ZIon 

Sad echo'd the;.shouts of the foe, 
And thy streets, ravished City, ran crimson 

With the blood of thy sons, lying low — 
When the scepter departed from Judah, 

From Levi his birthright was riven, 
And the people of God were led captive. 

Forsaken of earth and of Heaven! 

Or shall I rejoice In the beauty 

And glory again to be thine. 
When thy youth's loving Bridegroom shall ran- 
som 

His promise of comfort, divine — 
In the courts of God's temple rebuilded. 

Thy priests, morn and eve, shall proclaim 
"He is One!" — and the sons of the stranger 

Shall answer: "And One Is His Name!" 

370 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

With chorus of praise shall thy daughters 

Reecho the Levites' glad song, 
And thy gates night and day shall stand open 

For the pilgrims that thitherward throng. 
For the scepter returneth to David, 

The miter to Aaron's proud line; 
And neighbour shall welcome his neighbour 

To the shadow of fig-tree and vine. 

Like Akiba, who laughed when the foxes 

Ran out from the Holiest place, 
Saying: "True were the warnings of evil 

And true is the promise of grace," 
My thoughts, on this day of sad memories, 

Turn not back to the past in despair, 
But forward in hope to the future 

Where visions of glory shine fair! 
When I read in the book of the prophet 

Who voiced fallen Zion's distress, 
I seek not alone words of grieving. 

But these rarer, that comfort and bless: 
*'Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations. 

In the isles afar off be it told ; 
Who dispersed, will again gather Israel, 

And keep — as a shepherd his fold!" 

Solomon Sous Cohen. 



Ode to Zion 

{Hymn for- the Fast of Ab) 

A RT thou not, Zion, fain 

•**■ To send forth greetings from thy sacred rock 
Unto thy captive train, 

Who greet thee as the remnants of thy flock? 
Take thou on every side. 

East, west, and south and north, their greetings multi- 
plied. 

371 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Sadly he greets thee still, 

The prisoner of hope who, day and night, 
Sheds ceaseless tears, like dew on Hermon's hill. 

Would that they fell upon thy mountain's height! 

Harsh is my voice, when I bewail thy woes. 

But when in fancy's dream 
I see thy freedom, forth its cadence flows, 

Sweet as the harps, that hung by Babel's stream. 
My heart is sore distressed 
For Bethel ever blessed, 
For Peniel and each ancient, sacred place. 

The holy presence there 

To me is present, where 
Thy Maker opes thy gates, the gates of heaven to face. 

The glory of the Lord will ever be 

Thy sole and perfect light; 
No need hast thou then, to illumine thee, 

Of sun by day, or moon and stars by night. 
I would that, w^here God's spirit was of yore 

Poured out upon thy holy ones, I might 
There, too, my soul outpour. 

The house of kings and throne of God wert thou, 

How comes it then that now 
Slaves fill the throne where sat thy kings before ? 

Oh, who will lead me on 

To seek the spots where, in far distant years, 
The angels in their glory dawned upon 

Thy messengers and seers? 
Oh, who will give me wings 

That I may fly away. 
And there, at rest from all my wanderings, 

The ruins of my heart among thy ruins lay? 

I'll bend my face unto thy soil, and hold 
Thy stones as precious gold. 

And when in Hebron I have stood beside 

372 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

My father's tombs, then will I pass in turn 
Thy plains and forest wide; 

Until I stand on Gilead and discern 

Mount Hor and Mount Abarim 'neath whose crest 
Thy luminaries twain, thy guides and beacons rest. 

Thy air is life unto my soul, thy grains 

Of dust are myrrh, thy streams with honey flow; 
Naked and barefoot, to thy ruined fanes 

How gladly would I go 
To where the ark was treasured, and in dim 
Recesses dwelt the holy cherubim. 

I rend the beauty of my locks, and cry 

In bitter wrath against cruel fate 
That bids thy holy Nazirites to lie 

In earth contaminate. 
How can I make of meat or drink my care? 

How can mine eyes enjoy 
The light of day, when I see ravens tear 

Thy eagle's flesh, and dogs thy lion's whelps destroy? 
Away, thou cup of sorrow's poisoned gall! 

Scarce can my soul thy bitterness sustain, 
When I Aholah unto mind recall. 

I taste the venom; and when once again 
Upon Aholibah I muse, thy dregs I drain. 

Perfect in beauty, Zion, how in thee 

Do love and grace unite ! 
The souls of thy companions tenderly 

Turn unto thee; thy joy was their delight, 
And weeping they lament thy ruin now. 

In distant exile, for thy sacred height 
They long, and towards thy gates in prayer they bow. 

Thy flocks are scattered o'er the barren waste, 
Yet do they not forget thy sheltering fold, 

Unto thy garments' fringe they cling, and haste 
The branches of the palms to seize and hold. 

373 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Shinar and Pathros! come they near to thee? 

Naught are they by thy light and right divine. 
To what can be compared the majesty 

Of thy anointed line? 
To what the singers, seers, and the Levites thine? 

The rule of idols fails and is cast down ; 

Thy power eternal is, from age to age Thy crown. 

The Lord desires thee for His dwelling-place 

Eternally, and bless'd 
Is he whom God has chosen for the grace 

Within thy courts to rest. 
Happy is he that watches, drawing near, 

Until he sees thy glorious lights arise. 
And over whom thy dawn breaks full and clear 

Set in the orient skies. 
But happiest he who, with exultant e)'es, 

The bliss of thy redeemed ones shall behold, 

And see thy youth renewed as in days of old. 

JUDAH Ha-LeVI. 

(Translated by Alice Lucas.) 

Ode to Zion 

r\ ZION! of thine exiles' peace take thought, 
^^ The remnant of thy flock, who thine have sought! 
From west, from east, from north and south resounds, 
Afar and now anear, from all thy bounds, 

And no surcease, 

"With thee be peace!" 

In longing's fetters chained I greet thee, too. 
My tears fast welling forth like Hermon's dew — 
O bliss could they but drop on holy hills! 
A croaking bird I turn, when through me thrills 
Thy desolate state; but when I dream anon, 
The Lord brings back thy ev'ry captive son — 

A harp straightway 

To sing thy lay. 

374 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

In heart I dwell where once thy purest son 
At Bethel and Peniel, triumphs won ; 
God's awesome presence there was close to thee, 
Whose doors thy Maker, by divine decree, 

Opposed as mates 

To heaven's gates. 

Nor sun, nor moon, nor stars had need to be; 
God's countenance alone illumined thee 
On whose elect He poured His spirit out. 
In thee would I my soul pour forth devout! 
Thou wert the kingdom's seat, of God the throne, 
And now there dwells a slave race, not thine own, 

In royal state, 

Where reigned thy great. 

O would that I could roam o'er ev'ry place 
Where God to missioned prophets showed His grace! 
And who will give me wings? An off'ring meet, 
I'd haste to lay upon thy shattered seat. 

Thy counterpart — 

My bruised heart. 

Upon thy precious ground I'd fall prostrate. 
Thy stones caress, the dust within thy gate, 
And happiness it were in awe to stand 
At Hebron's graves, the treasures of -thy land, 
-And greet thy woods, thy vine-clad slopes, thy vales. 
Greet Abarim and Hor, whose light ne'er pales, 

A radiant crown, 

Thy priests' renown. 

Thy air is balm for souls; like myrrh thy sand; 
With honey run the rivers of thy land. 
Though bare my feet, my heart's delight I'd count 
To tread my way all o'er thy desert mount. 

Where once rose tall 

Thy holy hall. 

375 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Where stood thy treasure-ark, In recess dim, 
Close-curtained, guarded o'er by cherubim, 
My Naz'rite's crown would I pluck, off, and cast 
It gladly forth. With curses would I blast 
The impious time thy people, diadem-crowned. 
Thy Nazlrltes, did pass, by en'mles bound 

With hatred's bands, 

Through unclean lands. 

By dogs thy lusty lions are brutal torn 

And dragged; thy strong, young eaglets, heav'nward 

borne, 
By foul-mouthed ravens snatched, and all undone. 
Can food still tempt my taste? Can light of sun 
Seem fair to shine 
To eyes like mine? 

Soft, soft! Leave off a while, O cup of pain! 
My loins are weighted down, my heart and brain, 
With bitterness from thee. Whene'er I think 
Of Aholah, proud northern queen, I drink 
Thy wrath, and when my Aholibah forlorn 
Comes back to mind — 'tis then I quaff thy scorn, 

Then, draught of pain, 

Thy lees I drain. 

O ZIon! Crown of grace! Thy comeliness 
Hath ever favor won and fond caress. 
Thy faithful lovers' lives are bound in thine; 
They joy in thy security, but pine 

And weep In gloom 

O'er thy sad doom. 

From out the prisoner's cell they sigh for thee, 
And each in prayer, wherever he may be, 
Towards thy demolished portals turns. Exiled, 
Dispersed from mount to hill, thy flock defiled 
Hath not forgot thy sheltering fold. They grasp 
Thy garment's hem, and trustful, eager, clasp 

With outstretched arms. 

Thy branching palms. 

376 



THE JEWISH YEAR 

Shinar, Pathros — can they in majesty 
With thee compare? Or their idolatry 
With thy Urim and thy Thummim august? 
Who can surpass thy priests, thy saintly just, 

Thy prophets bold, 

And bards of old? 

The heathen kingdoms change and wholly cease- 

Thy might alone stands firm without decrease, 

Thy Nazarites from age to age abide, 

Thy God in thee desireth to reside. 

Then happy he who maketh choice of thee 

To dwell within thy courts, and waits to see. 

And toils to make, 

Thy light awake. 

On him shall as the morning break thy light, 
The bliss of thy elect shall glad his sight, 
In thy felicities shall he rejoice, 
In triumph sweet exult, with jubilant voice. 

O'er thee, adored, 

To youth restored. 

JUDAH Ha-LeVI. 

(Translated by Nina Davis.) 



In Memoriam, Ninth of Ab 

A ND all is lost! Thy valiant sons are dead 
"^•"Or slaves! The crown from oH thy queenly brow 

Is plucked! Thy glory in the dust doth bow! 
Thine ancient splendours are for ever fled ! 
I see it all — thine altars gory red : — 

Around, Death lays the mighty heroes low, 

Awhile, revengeful and relentless glow 
The fiendish flames, and from the foot to head 

Consume the Sanctuary! O woeful day! 

When Temple, Country, Freedom, all in one, 

377 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Most dire destruction, fell ! Then to the skies . 
Uprose the bitter cry of dark dismay, 
Oh, God, Almighty Lord, forgive, condone, 

And in Thy glory, make our glory rise! 

Ben Avrom. 



A Thought for the Ninth of Ah 

CWINGING low by a garden wall 
^ A flower bent its head, 
Only a few its beauty knew. 
And the fragrance sweet it shed. 

But a wind blew rough on the blossom rare, 
And its seeds were scattered wide. 

Now one finds its bloom, where'er there's room 
On the great green countryside! 

So stood the shrine on Zion's hill, 

For Truth's Temple fair. 
But all too few its beauty knew — 

Men knew not Truth dwelt there. 

But came the foe like shattering storm. 

And Temple walls laid low, 
'Neath weeping skies the ruin lies 

'Mid wails of mortal woe. 

But like windblown blossom then 

The precious seeds were blown, 
And Truth spread wide on every side 

Where'er the seeds were sown! 

Hadassah. 



378 



V 
LITURGICAL 



Hymn of Unity 

"VY/HO shall narrate Thy wonders wrought of old ? 
^^ The utterance of the lips Thou didst create, 
But all Thy majesty and power untold, 
Who shall narrate? 

Thy ways on earth in song we celebrate, 

Though none may Thy similitude behold, 

Yet know we by Thy works that Thou art great. 

Thousands of angels, by Thy word controU'd 
To do thy bidding, Thy commands await: 
Yet of them all. Thy wonders manifold 
Who shall narrate? 

Samuel Ben Kalonymus. 
(Translated by Alice Lucas.) 



The Hymn of Glory 

I 

CWEET hymns shall be my chant and woven songs, 
^ For Thou art all for which my spirit longs — 

To be within the shadow of Thy hand 
And all Thy mystery to understand. 

The while Thy glory is upon my tongue. 

My inmost heart what love of Thee is wrung. 

So though Thy mighty marvels I proclaim, 

'Tis songs of love wherewith I greet Thy name. 

II 

I have not seen Thee, yet T tell Thy praise, 

Nor known Thee, yet I image forth Thy ways. 

381 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

For by Thy seers' and servants' mystic speech 
Thou didst Thy sov'ran splendor darkly teach. 

And from the grandeur of Thy work they drew 
The measure of Thy inner greatness too. 

They told of Thee, but not as Thou must be, 
Since from Thy work they tried to body Thee. 

To countless visions did their pictures run, 
Behold through all the visions Thou art one. 

Ill - 

In Thee old age and youth at once were drawn, 
The grey of eld, the flowing locks of dawn. 

The ancient Judge, the youthful Warrior, 
The Man of Battles, terrible in war. 

The helmet of salvation on His head, 
And by His hand and arm the triumph led. 

His head all shining with the dew of light. 
His locks of dripping with the drops of night. 

IV 

I glorify Him, for He joys in me, 

My crown of beauty He shall ever be! 

His head is like pure gold ; His forehead's flame 
Is graven glory of His holy name. 

And with that lovely diadem 'tis graced. 
The coronal His people there have placed. 

His hair as on the head of youth is twined. 
In wealth of raven curls it flows behind. 

His circlet is the home of righteousness; 
Ah, may He love His highest rapture less! 

382 



LITURGICAL 

And be His treasured people in His hand 
A diadem His kingly brow to band. 

By Him they were uplifted, carried, crowned, 
Thus honored inasmuch as precious found. 

His glory is on me, and mine on Him, 
And when I call He is not far or dim. 

Ruddy in red apparel, bright He glows 

When He from treading Edom's wine-press goes. 

Phylacteried the vision Moses viewed 
The day he gazed on God's similitude. 

He loves His folk; the meek will glorify. 
And, shrined in prayer, draw their rapt reply. 

V 

Truth is Thy primal word ; at Thy behest 
The generations pass — O and our quest 

For Thee, and set my host of songs on high, 
And let my psalmody come very nigh. 

My praises as a coronal account, 

And let my prayer as Thine incense mount. 

Deem precious unto Thee the poor man's song. 
As those that to Thine altar did belong. 

Rise, O my blessing, to the Lord of birth, 

The breeding, quickening, righteous force of earth. 

Do Thou receive it with acceptant nod. 
My choicest incense offered to my God. 

And let my meditation grateful be. 
For all my being is athirst for Thee. 

JuDAH He-Hasid. 
(Translated by Israel Zangwill.) 

383 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



The Hymn of Glory 

CWEET hj^mns I chant, and weave melodious 

^ songs 

My God, to Thee, for whom my being longs. 

let my soul beneath Thy sheltr'ing hand 
Enshaded, all Thy secrets understand. 
Whene'er in words Thy glory I would prove, 
My panting heart yearns ever for Thy love. 
So when in glorious praise of Thee I sing, 
With loving cadences my voice shall ring. 

1 tell Thy glory, God unknown by me. 

In metaphors by prophet lips expressed. 
Drawing from out Thine actions manifest, 
A likeness of Thy power not of Thee. 

They Imaged Thee In visions manifold. 

Though Thou art One beneath all images; 
They saw Thee both In Age and Youthfulness, 

Black-haired in youth or grey as one grown old. 

Aged as Judge, and Young when war's alarm 
To manful striving calls. Then on Thy brow 
A helm of triumph binding, forth goest Thou 

Victorious through Thy right and holy arm. 

With dews of light His head Is crowned, His hair 
Heavy with night-drops glistens; He shall be 
By me adorned for He delights in me. 

My garland He, the beauteous crown I wear. 

Like purest gold His lustrous head does shine, 
Graven In words, His holy name outstands, 
Its radiance brightened, by His people's hands, 

Who bind a crown unto His crown divine. 

384 



LITURGICAL 

And poets pictured His young loveliness, 

His black locks flowing in their curled array, 
Thus saw they Him. Yet knew His fairest trait, 

His beauty's chosen Home, was righteousness. 

His treasured people were His royal crown, 
He bore them, they were precious in His eyes; 
His glory on me rests, mine on Him lies. 

He honours me when others cast me down. 

In ruddy robe, as one whose red feet fall 

On Edom's vines, comes He a God of Woe! 
The God of Grace who did to Moses show 

The symbol of His love embracing all. 

His wrath the proud. His love the humble find. 
His heart delights to glorify the meek; 
His seekers He, with answering search, does seek; 

Thus runs His truth,' revealed to all mankind. 

Then let my songs, my joyous ecstasies. 

Unto Thy diadem a gem confer; 

Or as the scented cassia and myrrh, 
In fragrant incense unto Thee arise. 

Do Thou as precious hold the poor man's cry 

As psalmody anigh Thine altar sung; 

And may my gift, those blessed gifts among. 
Find gracious way to Thee enthroned on high. 

And when I praise Thee, bounteous Lord, in song 
O deem my offering the choicest spice ; 
And let my thoughts be a sweet sacrifice. 

To lift my heart to Thee, for whom I long. 

(Translated by I. A.) 



385 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Hymn of Glory 

QWEET hymns and songs will I indite 
^ To sing of Thee by day and night, 
Of Thee, who art my soul's delight. 

How doth my soul within me yearn 
Beneath Thy shadow to return. 
Thy sacred mysteries to learn. 

And even while yet Thy glory fires 
My words, and hymns of praise inspires, 
Thy love it is my heart desires. 

Therefore will I of Thee relate 

All glorious things, and celebrate 

In songs of love Thy name most great. 

Thy glory shall my discourse be, 
In images I picture Thee, 
Although Thyself I cannot see. 

In m)^stic utterances alone 

By prophet and by seer made known, 

Hast Thy radiant glory shown. 

Thy might and greatness they portrayed 
According to the power displayed, 
In all the works Thy hand has made. 

In images of Thee they told 

Of Thy great wonders wrought of old. 

Thy essence could they not behold. 

In signs and visions seen of yore 
They pictured Thee in ancient lore, 
But Thou art One for evermore. 

^86 



LITURGICAL 

They saw in Thee both youth and age, 
The man of war, the hoary sage, 
But ever Israel's heritage. 

O Thou whose word is truth alway, 
Thy people seek Thy face this day, 
O be Thou near them when they pray. 

May these, my songs and musings, be 

Acceptable, O Lord, to Thee 

And do Thou hear them graciously. 

O let my praises heavenward sped, 
Be as a crow^n unto Thy head. 
My prayer as incense offered! 

O may my words of blessings rise 
To Thee, who throned above the skies, 
Art just and mighty, great and wise! 

And when Thy glory I declare 

Do Thou incline Thee to my prayer. 

As though sweet spice my offering were. 

My meditation day and night 
May it be pleasant in Thy sight. 
For Thou art all my soul's delight. 

(Translated by Alice Lucas.) 



The Kaddish 

A CCORDING to His righteous will, 
**^ Be magnify'd and hallow'd still, 
Throughout the world. His glorious name- 
The world which at His summons came. 
And let Him suddenly and soon. 
In glory, like the sun at noon, 

387 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

On earth establish, to His praise, 
His kingdom in your lives and days, 
And in the lives of all the race 
Of Israel, and fulfil his grace, 

O house of Israel, fear the Lord, 
And say, Amen, with one accord. 

Amen! His glorious name be blest J 

For evermore, through east and west. ■ 

Still blessed, prais'd, w^ith glory crowned, 
Exalted, magnified around, 
Rever'd, extoU'd, and lauded be 
His holy name, for bless'd is He 
'Bove blessings all, or hymns sublime, 
Or praises in the tents of time, 
Or blessednesses said or sung 
By mortal or immortal tongue. 

O house of Israel^ fear the Lord; 
And say. Amen, with one accord. 

Let all the race of Israel's pray'rs 
And supplications, in their cares. 
Be grateful in their Father's sight. 
Who's high in heaven, enthron'd in light. 

O house of Israel, fear the Lord; 
And say. Amen, with one accord. 

Let peace, and joy, and bliss from heav'n, 
From day to day be freely giv'n ; 
With life to us and ours in store. 
And each of Israel, evermore, 

O house of Israel, fear the Lord; 
And say. Amen, with one accord. 

Let Him, whose blessings never cease, 
Who through his lofty heav'ns makes peace. 
Make ever peace with us to dwell. 
And all the race of Israel. 

O house of Israel, fear the Lord; 
And say. Amen, with one accord. W. W. 

388 



LITURGICAL 



Ode on Chazanuth 

A RISE and sing, thou deathless melody — 
"^^ Life's blended song — 

Bearing on wings of sound aloft with thee 
A mortal throng. 

Lo, living yet, beloved, lingering strain, 

My harp of old, 
Voice of a patience that hath borne the pain 

Of years untold! 

Each olden chord awaketh, every tone, 

Soaring at length, 
Mingling a mighty gladness with a groan 
Of fallen strength. 

Angels be gathering Earth's ascending prayer, 

That, heavenward bound. 
Shall deck the Throne with wreathed garlands fair 

Of wafted sound. 

Song of the ages, lo! the fettered soul 

Shall break its bond, 
And, wrapt in thee, look forth upon the whole 

Of Heaven beyond. 

Sing on, sweet minstrel, thine immortal song — 

My harp for aye, 
Vision of hope to men that live and long 

And pass away, 

Nina Davis. 



389 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 
Adon Olam 

T ORD over all! whose power the sceptre swayed, 
Ere first Creation's wondrous form was framed, 
When by His will divine all things were made; 
Then King Almighty was His name proclaimed I 

When all shall cease — the universe be o'er, 
In awful greatness He alone will reign, 

Who was, who is, and who will evermore 
In glory most refulgent still remain. 

Sole God ! unequalled, and beyond compare. 

Without division or associate; 
Without commencing date or final year, 

Ominpotent He reigns in awful state. 

To Him, no like, no equal e'er can be; 

He, without change or substitute remains, 
Without divisibleness or adjunct, He 

In highest might and power supremely reigns. 

He is my God! my living Savior He! 

My sheltering Rock in sad misfortune's hour! 
My standard, refuge, portion, still shall be, 

My lot's Disposer when I seek His power. 

Into His hands my spirit I consign 

Whilst wrapped in sleep, that I again may wake: 
And with my soul, my body I resign ; 

The Lord with me, — no fears my soul can shake. 

D. A. DE Sola. 



Adon Olam 

T ORD of the world, He reigned alone 
While yet the universe was naught, 
When by His will all things were wrought, 
Then first His sovran name was known. 

390 



LITURGICAL 

And when the All shall cease to be, 

In dread lone splendor He shall reign. 
He was, He is, He shall remain 

In glorious eternity. | 

For He is one, no second shares 

His nature or His loneliness; 

Unending and beginningless, 
All strength is His, all sway He bears. 

He is the living God to save. 

My Rock while sorrow's toils endure, 
My banner and my stronghold sure, 

The cup of life whene'er I crave, 

I place my soul within His palm 

Before I sleep as when I wake. 

And though my body I forsake, 
Rest in the Lord in fearless calm. 

Israel Zangwill. 

Adon Olam 

OEIGNED the universe's Master, ere were earthly 

^ things begun ; 

When his mandate all created Ruler was the name 

He won; 
And alone He'll rule tremendous when all things are 

past and gone. 
He no equal has, nor consort, He, the singular and 

lone. 
Has no end and no beginning; His the sceptre, might, 

and throne. 
He's my God and living Saviour, rock to whom in 

need I run; 
He's my banner and my refuge, fount of weal when 

called upon; 
In His hand I place my spirit, at night-fall and rise 

of sun. 
And therewith my body also; God's my God — I fear 

no one. George Borrow. 

391 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Paraphrase of Adon Olam 

DEFORE the glorious orbs of light, 
^ Had shed one blissful ray, 
In awful power, the Lord of might 
Reign'd in eternal day. 

At His creative, holy word 

The voice of nature spoke, 
Unnumber'd worlds with one accord, 

To living joys awoke. 

Then was proclaim'd the mighty King, 

In majesty on high! 
Then did the holy creatures sing 

His praises through the sky. 

All merciful in strength he reigns 

Immutable! supreme! 
His hand the universe sustains, 

He only can redeem. 

He Is the mighty God alone! 

His presence fills the w^orld; 
He will forever reign the one, 

Eternal, only Lord! 

Almighty, powerful and just! 

Thou art my God, my friend, 
My rock, my refuge arid my trust, 

On Thee my hopes depend. 

O ! be my guardian whilst I sleep. 
For Thou didst lend me breath : 

And when I wake, my spirit keep, 
And save my soul in death. 

David Nunes Carvalho. 



392 



LITURGICAL 



Adon Olam 

BEFORE Thy heavenly word revealed the wonders 
of Thy will; 
Before the earth and heaven came forth from chaos 

deep and still ; 
E'en then thou reignedest Lord supreme as Thou wilt 

ever reign, 
And moved Thy holy spirit o'er the dark unfathomed 
main. 

But when through all the empty space Thy mighty 

voice was heard, 
Then darkness fled and heavenly light came beaming 

at Thy word ; 
All Nature then proclaimed Thee King most blessed 

and adored, 
The great Creator, God alone, the Universal Lord! 

And when this vast created world returns to endless 

night. 
When heaven and earth shall fade away at Thy dread 

word of Might, 
Still Thou in majesty will rule, Almighty One, alone. 
Great God, with mercy infinite, on Thy exalted 

throne. 

Immortal Power! Eternal One! with Thee what can 

compare? 
Thy glory shines in heaven and earth, and fills the 

ambient air; 
All time, all space, by Thee illumed, grows bright and 

brighter still, 
Obedient to Thy high behest, and to Thy heavenly 

will. 

To Thee dominion sole belongs and 'tis to Thee alone, 
My Father, Saviour, Living God, I make my sor- 
rows known. 

393 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Thy love, celestial and divine, descends upon my 
heart, 

Inspiring courage, hope and joy, and bidding grief de- 
part. 

Protected by Thy boundless love, my body sinks to 

rest ; 
My soul w^ithin Thy Heavenly arm, reposes calm and 

blest. " 
Lord of my life! in darkened night I sleep and have 

no fear. 
And In early dawn I wake and find Thee ever near. 

Anonymous. 

Adon Olam 

TpHE everlasting Lord who reigned 
* Ere yet was formed or shape or thing, 
When all was made as he decreed 
Was even then acknowledged King. 

And after all that is shall end. 

Alone shall reign the feared one — He 

In his resplendence glorious 

Who was, who Is, and who will be. 

And He is one and there Is none. 
No second to compare or share — 

Without beginning, without end — 
In his dominion everywhere. 

He Is my God — my helper lives — 

My rock when grievous times befall, 

My banner He, my refuge He, 

And my cup's portion, when I call. 

Within His hand I trust my soul 
In sleep and waking — He is near — 

And with my soul, my body, too: 

The Lord's with me; I have no fear. 

Jessie E. Sampter. 

394 



LITURGICAL 

A don Olani 

(A paraphrase for children.) 

pTERNAL Lord, His praise I sing, 

Who reigned before the world was wrought; 
Creation's voice acclaimed Him King, 
Whose Word created all from nought. 

And when all things shall pass away, 

He will not pass. He still will reign, 
Alone, unchang'd, of sov'reign sway, 
He was, He is, He will remain. 

Yea, He is One, no second dares 

Compare with Him in wondrous might; 

None owns His strength; His throne none shares; 
Without beginning, infinite. 

My God, my living Saviour He; 

My Rock of Hope in sorrow's hour; 
I thirst — my cup He fills for me ; 

He is my Beacon and my Tower. 

Whene'er I sleep, whene'er I wake. 

With Him I leave my soul so dear: 
His care may He my body make! 

God guarding me, I have no fear. 

Israel Gollancz. 



Our Creed 

"yHERE is one only God 

Through nature's vast domains; 
A God of Righteousness, 

Whose love fore'er remains, 

395 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

None can compare to Him, 

Eternal Is His name, 
He was of old, He is. 

And will be e'er the same. 

He Is the First and Last, 

And absolutely One, 
Without divided parts. 

And equal has He none. 
Unchanging is His law. 

Immutable His will. 
And though we often err, 

His mercy guards us still. 

Our Inmost secret thought 

Before Him open lies. 
Our deeds are all observed 

By His all-seeing eyes. 
All goodness He rewards. 

On sin He sends a blight. 
The clean and pure of heart 

Are His supreme delight. 

This uncreated God, 

O man, Is Father, Friend; 
The heavens, earth and seas 

He made from end to end. 
He Is the King of kings, 

Of lords the highest Lord, 
By all that has life's breath 

He Is to be adored. 

To love Him we must do 

True service for mankind, 
For thus, a paradise 

On earth we all shall find. 
In His most loving hands 

Our souls In faith we place. 
In life and death we trust 

His justice and His grace. 

J. Leonard Levy. 

396 



LITURGICAL 



Yigdal 

'T'HE living God, O magnify and bless, 
"*" Transcending Time and here eternally. 
One Being, yet unique in unity; 
A mystery of Oneness measureless. 

Lo! form or body He has none, and man 
No semblance of His holiness can frame. 
Before Creation's dawn He was the same; 
The first to be, though never He began. 

He is the world's and every creature's Lord ; 
His rule and majesty are manifest, 
And through His chosen, glorious sons exprest 
In prophecies that through their lips are poured. 

Yet never like to Moses rose a seer. 
Permitted glimpse behind the veil divine. 
This faithful prince of God's prophetic line 
Received the Law of Truth for Israel's ear. 

The Law God gave He never will amend, 
Nor ever by another Law replace. 
Our secret things are spread before His face; 
In all beginnings He beholds the end. 

The saint's reward He measures to his meed ; 
The sinner reaps the harvest of his ways. 
Messiah He will send at end of days, 
And all the faithful to salvation lead. 

God will the dead again to life restore 
In His abundance of almighty love. 
Then blessed be His Name, all names above. 
And let His praise resound for evermore. 

Israel Zangwill. 



397 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Yigdal 

P XTOLLED be the living God and lauded be His 

^-^ name ; 

He doth exist and will thro' endless aeons be the same. 

Our God is Unity, and Unity like His there's none; 
Ah ! inconceivable is He, and thro' all times is one. 

He doth no form nor shape nor yet our mortal fashion 

bear ; 
In heav'n, on earth, can naught like to His holiness 

compare. 

Prior to each created thing, of wondrous shape and 
grace. 

He was the first, and, ere He w^as, can none com- 
mencement trace. 

Behold! He rules the Universe, His creatures teach- 

eth He 
The greatness of His awful might, His glorious 

sovereignty. 

The spirit of His prophecy hath He bestowed on those 
Whom, for the glory of His name, our Heav'nly 
Father chose. 

Though great the fame of Israel's sons, meek Moses 

none excelled ; 
Alone, among her seers, he God's similitude beheld. 

A law of truth and life He gave, our everlasting Rock, 
By him who was the faithful guide and teacher of his 
flock. 

This law sublime and beautiful, for any new or 
strange. 

Our Shield, thro' all eternities, will nevermore ex- 
change. 

398 



LITURGICAL 

The secret courses of our thoughts doth th' AUvvis. 
watch and know; 

And clear to Him, all hidden ends their own com- 
mencements show. 

His loving kindness blesseth those who wtU their task 

fulfil, 
A chast'ning hand falls heavy on transgressors of His 

will. 

His messenger He'll surely send upon the final day. 
Redeeming those, who, strong in faith, for His salva- 
tion stay. 

In love He wn'U the dead revive that sleep beneath the 
ground. 

For ever blessed be His name. His praise fore'er re- 
sound. 

Florence Ahronsberg. 



Yigdal 

PXTOL we now the living God, 

His praises loud relate, 
Who is — and whose existence is 
Not bound by time or date. 

Who, One and only One, alone 

Invisible doth dwell ; 
And peerless in His unity, 

His limit who shall tell? 

Material form, similitude. 
Or likeness, none hath He; 

Nor can there to His holiness 
Comparison e'er be. 

399 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Ere glad Creation, at His word, 

To life and light outburst; 
Of primal date — Eternal He — 

Without beginning — First! 

In all the world — the wide expanse, 

Its dwellers all around, 
Proclaim His might. His majesty. 

Which everywhere abound. 

Prophetic powers he deigned below^ 

Blest words of revelation, 
To them, His treasured men of worth, 

In glorious inspiration. 

But like to Moses none arose, 

'Mid Israel's chosen few. 
Who face to face with God did speak, 

And did His semblance view. 

And when in mercy, laws of truth, 

God for His people penn'd, 
He by that faithful Prophet pleased 

His holy law to send. 

Nor ever w^ill our gracious Lord 

Another code bestow; 
For, all complete, His perfect law 

No altering change can know. 

Our hidden thoughts, our ev'ry act. 
From Him are ne'er conceal'd ; 

Yea! ere commenced, of all, the end 
To Him at once reveal'd. 

Rewarding kindness, as his meed. 
The good man's just return ; 

But to the wicked, punishment 
His own misdoings earn. 

400 



I 



LITURGICAL 

Who at His time — In length of days — 

Wiir our Messiah send, 
Redeeming those who, anxious, wait 

Salvation as their end. 

In wondrous mercy, then the dead 

Revive at God's behest; 
Then be His praises ever sung, 

His name be ever blest. 

Philip Abraham. 

Yigdal 

TTHE living God we praise, exalt, adore! 
■*■ He was, He is. He will be evermore. 

No unity like unto His can be, 
Eternal, inconceivable is He. 

No form or shape has th' Incorporeal One, 
Most holy beyond all comparison. 

He was, ere aught was made In heaven or earth, 
But His existence has no date or birth. 

Lord of the Universe is He proclaimed, 
Teaching His power to all His hand has framed. 

He gave His gift of prophecy to those 

In whom He gloried, whom He loved and chose. 

No prophet ever yet has filled the place 
Of Moses, who beheld God face to face. 

Through Him (the faithful In His house) the Lord 
The law of truth to Israel did accord. 

This law God will not alter, will not change 
For any other through time's utmost range. 

401 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

He knows and heeds the secret thoughts of man: 
He saw the end of all ere aught began. 

With love and grace doth He the righteous bless, 
He metes out evil unto wickedness. 

He at the last w^ill His anointed send, 
Those to redeem, who hope, and wait the end. 

God will the dead to life again restore, 
Praised be His glorious name for evermore. 

Alice Lucas. 



The Meziizah 

nnHE Cerberus brea'i^rs that brawl and that cry, 

The sun and the sky with their Raphael eye, 
The skylarks that soar and the serpents that creep, 
The lilies that love and the wallows that weep, 
The grandeurs of heaven, the glamours of earth. 
In Thy outdoors, O God, they are singing Thy worth. 
And love and its wonder, the mother and child. 
The lullabies sw^eet, and the elegies wild. 
The sanctuary, Home, the spirit-realm's pole, 
The Eden unlost, and the shrine of the soul. 
In Thy indoors, O God, in the hearth we revere, 
In its tears, in its triumphs, Thy splendors appear. 
But leaving to heaven, the sun and the star, 
When we grope on the threshold and wait for the bar 
To slip, and the door of the home to unfold, 
And see not the rising or sunsetting gold, 
While we grope on the threshold expectant and tense, 
All silent with fearful and hopeful suspense. 
Dumb lintel above us, blind doorstep, before. 
The heart, it is neither on ocean or shore. 
What hint to the soul of the Master, what gleam. 
What clue to His labyrinth's coil of dream? 
It is the Mezuzah, the doorpost uplifts, 

402 



LITURGICAL 

Enwrit with Thy statutes, Thy name and Thy gifts; 
Coat of Arms of the knighthood of God, like a spell, 
The Mezuzah holds sentry where Israelites dwell. 
What heavenly romance, its blazonings seal, 
What lists, and what Galahads that harm not but heal. 
•What Unity linking the shadow and sun, 
Till shadow and sunshine one glory have spun; 
And it isn't the parchment, the scroll or the case, 
It's the charm of the Shaddai it bears on its face, 
And the mystical Shema inscribed in the scroll, 
We caress and we kiss. We are kissing its soul 
In crossing the threshold ; O hearken, we pray, 
"Heaven keep our going and coming each day.'* 
And they tell, Belial, the demon of vice, 
In touching the threshold, must cease to entice. 
For the doorstep's enchanted, the Mezuzah has charm 
To keep from the threshold the harpies that harm. 
The Mezuzah's the soul of the threshold, behold, 
It touched with enchantment and mystical gold. 
The portal : The threshold with witchcraft is shod, 
On the threshold and doorpost, we also see God! 

Alter Abelson. 



Tephillin 

P RECT he stands, in fervent prayer, 

His body cloaked in silken Tallis; 
He seems a king, so free from care, 

His wife a queen, his home a palace. 
His arm and head, his brawn and brain, 

He dedicates to God in Heaven; 
For Him he suffers toil and pain. 

Endures whatever lot he's given. 

Around his arm seven times is wrapped 
A wide phylactery, glistening thong; 

His shaggy, curly hair is capped 
By still another, tough and strong. 

403 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

These bands he wears while soft he prays, 
Devoting strength and mind to God; 

His body slowly, gently sways, — 

He walks the ground his fathers trod. 

This daily commune with the Master 

Lifts him above mere common clay; 
The . Jewish heart, like alabaster. 

Grows pure and purer every day, 
For he who loves a Higher Being 

Must love all creatures here below; 
And he who knows there's one All-Seeing, 

Knows all he can and e'er will know. 

Aaron Schaffer. 



Morning Song 

(The hymn beginning with these words is among 
the most beautiful and heart-reaching preserved in our 
liturgy, though evidently intended for private devo- 
tion. Its author is R. Solomon Ibn Gabirol, one of 
Israel's most tuneful and gifted poets.) 

A T early morn. Thee will I seek 
^^ In pray'r, O Rock of my defence ! 
'Fore Thy greatness stand I in awe, 
Abash'd at Thy omnipotence. 

O, what avails the power of man ! 

Thy hand its limits doth control ; 
O, where the beauty of the form 

That clothes In clay the god-like soul ? 

All these are naught ; whate'er we are, 
Whate'er we have. Thy goodness gives ; 

Then let our praise to Thee ascend, 
Whilst yet in us the spirit lives. 

Henry S. Jacobs. 
404 



i 



LITURGICAL 

Morning Song 

A T the dawn, I seek Thee, 
^~^ Refuge and rock sublime, — 
Set my prayer before Thee In the morning, 

And my prayer at eventime. 
I before Thy greatness 

Stand, and am afraid : — 
All my secret thoughts Thine eye beholdeth 

Deep within my bosom laid. 
And withal what is it 

Heart and tongue can do? 
What is this my strength, and what is even 

This the spirit in me too? 
But verily man's singing 

May seem good to Thee ; 
So will I thank Thee, praising, while there dwelleth 

Yet the breath of God in me. 

Solomon Ibn Gabirol. 
(Translated by Alice Lucas.) 



Song of Israel to God 

iy/[Y Love! hast Thou forgotten 
^^^ Thy rest 

Upon my breast? 
And wherefore hast Thou sold me 
To be enslaved for aye? 
Have I not followed Thee upon the way 
Of olden time within a land not sown? 
Lo! Seir and Mount Paran — nor these alone- 
Sinai and Sin — yea, these 
Be all my witnesses. 
For Thee my love was ever, 
And mine 
Thy grace divine ; 
And how hast Thou apportioned 
My glory away from me ? 

405 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Thrust unto Seir, pursued, sent forth to flee 
Unto Kedar, nor suffered to abide; 
Within the Grecian fiery furnace tried; 

Afflicted, weighed with care, 

With Media's yoke to bear; — 
And is there any to redeem but Thee? 
Or other captive with such hope above? 
Thy strength, O Lord ; grant of Thy strength to me ! 
For I give Thee my love. 

JUDAH Ha-LeVI. 

(Translated by Alice Lucas.) 



Morning Invocation 

A T morn I ask Thee, lend Thy shelt'ring aid ! 
**■ My hopes and fears before Thy Throne are laid. 
Like one abashed I stand, prostrate before Thy might, 
My new-awakened heart hides nothing from Thy sight ! 

My heart, my tongue, too, fails 

To utter what avails! 
My skill, my strength, are naught ! 

But Thou, of grace, dost take 

The prayers which mortals make, 
The prayers Thy love has taught. 

So shall my voice ascend. 

Until my life shall end ; . 
The while, within my body's shrine, 
Dwelleth my soul, Thy gift divine! 

Solomon Ibn Gabirol. 



The Night Prayer 

'T'HE bands of sleep fall on mine eyes. 

My lids in slumber close. 
O Lord our God ! I pray to Thee 
To guard me in repose. 

406 



LITURGICAL 

O grant that I may lay me down 

In peace at fall of night, 
And that in peace I may rise up 

To greet the rising light. 

Let not my thoughts or evil dreams 

Or fancies trouble me, 
Safe in Thy ever-watchful care 

My rest will perfect be. 

Enlighten Thou mine eyes, O God ! 

Lest I sleep the sleep of death ; 
O Thou, who givest life to all. 

From Thee we draw each breath. 



Florence Weisberg. 



DLESS'D art Thou, O Lord of all, 

Who mak'st the bands of sleep to fall 
Upon mine eyes, and slumber press 
Mine eyelids down with heaviness. 

God of my fathers, may it be 
Thy will, this night to suffer me 
To lay me down in peace and rise 
In peace, when morning gilds the skies. 

From thoughts of ill my slumber keep 
And, lest the sleep of death I sleep, 
O lighten Thou mine eyes, for Thou, 
Lord, dost with light the eye endow. 

Bless'd art Thou, O Lord most high, 
Who in Thy glorious majesty 
And in Thy gracious love hast given 
Light upon earth and light in heaven. 

Alice Lucas. 



407 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

/'^AUSE us, our Father, to lie down in peace, 

^^ And raise us up, our King, to life again; 

Direct us on our way 

With Thy good counsel's stay 

And let us 'neath Thy tent of peace remain. 

O save us for the sake of Thy great name, 

Be unto us a shield, Thou King of kings. 

Remove from out our life 

Sickness and care and strife ; 

Shelter us in the shadow of Thy wings. 

Our guardian and deliverer Thou art. 

Merciful King, whom heaven and earth adore! 

Guard Thou from harm and sin 

Our goings out and in, 

With life and peace henceforth and evermore. 

Alice Lucas. 



Nishmas 

'X'HE breath of ev'ry living thing, 
* O Lord, shall bless Thy Name; 
The spirit of all flesh on earth 
Thy glory shall proclaim. 

For Thou art God for evermore. 

Beside Thee we have none ; 
No king, nor saviour who redeems, 

Save Thou ! Almighty One ! 

Thou settest free, and bring'st us aid 

In times of grief or woe ; 
With mercies great and manifold ; 

No King but Thee we know ! 

Florence Weisberg. 



408 I 



LITURGICAL 



Nishmas 

A LL living souls shall bless Thy name, 
^~*' O just and gracious God ! 
All flesh Thy providence proclaim, 
Thy holy works applaud. 

From age to age will we relate 
The wonders Thou hast wrought, 

Delighting to expatiate 

On all which Thou hast taught. 

Young men and maidens lift the voice, 

Thy wisdom to extol, 
And children in Thy praise rejoice, 

Father and Friend of all ! 

But though our hands should be outspread, 

As are the eagle's wings. 
To thank Thee for the daily bread, 

That from Thy bounty springs. 

Though song, like sounding billows, too, 
Should from our lips proceed. 

How large a debt would yet be due 
To Thee, from Jacob's seed ! 

Thrice holy. Lord of hosts ! art Thou, 

Ineffable and pure ! 
Before Thy Majesty we bow. 

Great King, whom we adore. 

Penina Moise. 



409 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Adoration 

nrO Israel the charge belongs 
■'• Their grateful hearts to raise ; 
To speak, in glad, triumphant songs, 
The Lord Almighty's praise. 

His hand the universe hath wrought, 

The starry heavens o'erhead ; 
From darkness He His people brought 

The light of truth to spread. 

We bow the head, we bend the knee, 

And worship Him alone; 
The King of Kings whose majesty 

And sovereign power we own. 

He is our God, the only Lord, 

Our King is truth indeed ; 
His sovereign power His laws record 

As taught to Israel's seed. 

Grant Thou our hope, Almighty King, 

That promised day to see, 
When nations shall Thy praises sing, 

And bend the knee to Thee. 

The reign of truth and peace begun. 

Our sin and error flee ; 
Thou art alone, proclaimed the One, 

And One Thy Name shall be. 

David Levy. 



The Benediction 

"T* HERE'S a memory that sweetens 

My father's last adieu, 
There's a solemn thought that deepens 
When I think of him anew. 

410 



J 



LITURGICAL 

'Tis the blessing that he uttered 
When I took his last farewell, 

The priestly threefold blessing 
Our people know so well. 

Ah, bless thee, Lord, and keep thee, 

His countenance e'er shine. 
And gracious be He to thee, 

And give thee peace and thine. 
His hands were spread in blessing 

Above my bowing head, 
His blessing lives within me, 

His spirit is not fled. 

The dear old Jewish custom 

Made many a stout heart; 
I always felt the better 

When thus I used to part. 
And though he is gone forever, 

To sleep beneath the sod, 
I still can hear him lifting 

The self-same prayer to God. 

Ah, bless thee, Lord, and keep thee. 

His countenance e'er shine. 
And gracious be He to thee, 

And give thee peace and thine. 
His countenance be lifted. 

And may He grant thee peace, 
The goal of earthly living, 

And Heaven's own surcease. 

Harry Weiss. 



Grace After Meals 

/^UR Rock with loving care, 
^"^ According to His word. 
Bids all His bounty share; 
Then let us bless the Lord. 

411 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

His flock our Shepherd feeds 
With graciousness divine ; 
He satisfies our needs 
With gifts of bread and wine.- 
Therefore with one accord 
We will His name adore, 
Proclaiming evermore 
Holy, holy is the Lord. 
Our Rock, etc. 

The land desired so long, 
Our fathers' heritage, 
Inspires our prayer and song 
To God from age to age. 
His bounteous gifts afford 
Our sustenance each day. 
His mercy is our stay, 
Yea, faithful in the Lord. 
Our Rock, etc. 

O be Thy mercy moved, 
Our Rock, to dwell with us. 
With Zion, Thy beloved. 
Our temple glorious 
May we redeemed, restored, 
Be led there every one 
By David's holy son, 
The Anointed of the Lord. 
Our Rock, etc. 

Thy city built once more. 
Thy temple walls uprising, 
There will we adore 
With joyful songs of praise 
Thee, merciful, adored. 
We bless and sanctify 
With wine-cups filled up high, 
By blessing of the Lord. 

Our Rock, etc. Anonymous. 
(Translated by Alice Lucas.) 

412 



i 



i 



LITURGICAL 



Matij the Image of God 

PXULT, my soul, in consciousness proud, 
'■— ' That I in God's image was made: 
That 'mid natui;e's irrational crowd, 
Moral light to me was conveyed ; 
When dust, by His pure breath refined, 
In flesh the "vital spark" enshrined. 

Oh! how shall I deserve the station 
Omnipotence assigns to me; 
Whose spiritual elevation 
Is next to angels in degree? 
How Mercy's likeness manifest, 
Reflected in each mortal breast? 

Perilous pre-eminence! to hold 
Perfection's model in the rnind ; 
Yet feel how the inferior mould 
In which its essence is confined, 
May all Its majesty efface, 
And leave of stamp divine no trace. 

Immortal reason! hast thou no beam 
Of bright intelligence to prove 
Thy semblance to that Sire supreme, 
Whose breath is life, whose blessing love? 
Triumph ! though passions dim thy ray, 
In thee God's Image we survey. 

Justice, by thee e'er directed, 

His strongest feature typifies; 

In truth (through reason best reflected) 

His spirit's light I recognize; 

And in beneficence e'er trace 

His brightest trait; celestial grace! 

How glorious this filiation 

Between the Lord of worlds and me! 



413 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Oh! how shall I deserve the station, 
Next to the angels in degree? 
Like these, by walking in His ways; 
Like these, by singing e'er His praise. 

Penina MoisE. 

Grace for the Sabbath 

T^O Israel this day is joy ever bless'd, 
•■' Is light and is gladness, a Sabbath of rest. 
Thou Sabbath of rest, 
To a people distress'd, 
To sorrowful souls, 
A strong soul hast given. 
From souls tempest-driven 
Thou takest their sighing. 
Thou takest their sighing, 
Thou Sabbath of rest. 

This Sabbath of rest, 
O God, thou hast bless'd 
And hallowed above 
All the days of creation, 
The care-laden nation 
To peace and hope wakens, 
To peace and hope wakens, 
This Sabbath of rest. 

To slaves giveth rest 

The Sabbath behest. 

We are free while we keep 

Its statutes appointed. 

A gift well anointed, 

We bring thee, O loved One, 

We bring thee, O loved One, 

The Sabbath of rest. 

O gladden our rest. 
And our sanctuary bless'd 
Restore thou, O Lord, 
And grant Thy salvation 
To Israel Thy nation, 

414 



LITURGICAL 

Extolling and praising 

Extolling and praising 

The Sabbath of rest. 
To Israel this day is joy ever bless'd 
Is light and is gladness, a Sabbath of rest. 

Alice Lucas. 

Faith 

And the Lord, He it is that doth go before thee; He 
will be with thee. He will not fail thee, neither forsake 
thee; fear not, neither be dismayed. — Deuteronomy, 
xxxi, 8. 

My presence shall go with thee, and I will give 
thee rest. — Exodus, xxxiii, 14. 

r\ F all Thy gifts the best. 
^^^ On us Thy needy people, sore distress'd. 
Sore travel worn, and stained with sin and woe, 
Of all Thy gifts the best. 

Then shall we find, amid life's toilsome quest. 

The peace of God, from which all blessings flow. 
Then shall no evil fears our souls molest. 

Faith, faith in Thee, faith that, where'er we go. 
Thy presence goes with us, and gives us rest 

That is in heaven above, on earth below. 
Of all Thy gifts the best ! 

Alice Lucas. 



Rude Are the Tabernacles No 



w 



D UDE are the tabernacles now, 
Of Israel's scattered band ; 
Still to the East the faithful bow, 
And bless their fatherland. 
Oh ! save us, we beseech Thee, Lord ! 
Through every chance and change adored. 

415 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Oh, when we think of Palestine, 

Whose consecrated dust 

Once bore the hallowed ark and shrine 

Of Judah's only trust; 

We mourn to mark the stranger there, 

Who only mocks the Hebrew's prayer. 

Wake ye, who In the deadly sleep. 
Of self-delusion He! 
Arise! or ye may live to weep 
The time now passing by. 
Save us, O Everlasting Lord ! 
Thy aid against remorse afford! 

Let us re-open mercy's law. 

And in our bosoms lock 

Precepts, that humble hearts shall draw 

Towards salvation's rock; 

Praises to Heaven's Supreme Lord, 

Who did this sovereign gift accord! 

Anonymous. 

From the Hymn Book of Congregation Beth Elohim, Charleston, 
S. C, 5616. 



God Is Nigh to Contrite Hearts 

T ORD of the world, we seek Thy face, 
■■-^ With contrite hearts Implore Thy grace, 
Not on our merits we depend, 

To us Thy favor Thou wilt send; 
But trusting in Thy mercy great, 

That Thou wilt hear us supplicate. 

For what are we, our life or deed ? 

Some broken staff; some bruised reed, 
What are the virtues that we boast? 

Of small account and vain at most. 
What Is our strength and what our power 

That fails us In each tempting hour? 

416 



i 



LITURGICAL 

What can we urge our cause to plead, 

Our fathers' God, to Intercede? 
For what to Thee are men of power 

Who fade at last like grass or flower? 
What are the wise, the most august? 

Thou art to them as star to dust. 

The greatest of our works are vain, 
For life is fraught with sin and pain. 

And how alike are beast and man. 
Whose longest years are but a span, 

Save in that pure, immortal soul 

Which yearns for its celestial goal. 

There at Thy throne in future time, — 
Though most momentous and sublime, — 

The soul shall render its report 

At Mercy's just and last high court; 

And there the favor of the Lord 
Shall be its true and blest reward. 

David Levy. 



A Prayer 

Imitation of the Persian 

T ORD! who art merciful as well as just, 
*-^ Incline Thine ear to me, a child of dust. 

Not what I would, O Lord ! I offer Thee, 
Alas! but what I can. 
Father Almighty, who hast made me man 
And bade me look to heaven, for Thou art there, 
Accept my sacrifice and humble prayer. 

Four things which are not in Thy treasury, 
I lay before Thee, Lord ! with this petition ; — 

My nothingness, my wants. 
My sins and my contrition, 

Alice Lucas. 

417 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



A Prayer 

I EAVE not a veil before my eyes, 

*^ Tear from my mind the shield of lies, 

And from my soul the web of sophistries ; 

Yea, though I stricken, shirk and flee, 

God, give me eyes to see. 

Send me no song so honey-sweet 
That I forget the harsher beat 
Of life, the pulsing discords of the street, 

Smite me with sorrow as a spear — 

But give me ears to hear. 

Grant me the will to pay for light, 

For vision overtopping sight. 

And dreams that are not of the passing night; 

Yield, at what price Thou shalt demand, 

A heart to understand. 

V. H. Friedlander. 



Sacred Lyric 

"Vy/HEN Sorrow, blinded with her tears. 

Upon my life in darkness stole 
And quenched my hopes and roused my fears, 
And smote and pierced my weary soul, 
O, then, I turned my heart to Thee, 
O Lord of Hosts, to comfort me. 

When, like rough winds in stormy skies. 
Fears lashed my heart and seared my brain, 
Until before my aching eyes 
Life's joys were pitilessly slain, 
Alone, I turned, O God, to Thee, 
To solace and to comfort me. 

418 



LITURGICAL 

For cares may blind and gloom may shroud, 

And desolation chill the heart, 

But Thou canst rend the blackest cloud, 

And heal life's anguish and its smart; 

As humbly I may turn to Thee. 

O Lord of Hosts! to comfort me. 

Isidore G. Ascher. 



The Voice of God 

I HEARD His voice in song of wren 
Beneath the hedge at daybreak, when 

The dew like diamonds gleams. 
I heard His voice in bubbling rills 
That tumbled down the verdant hills. 

To swell the sea-ward streams. 
I heard His voice in whisp'ring breeze, 
That gleaned the secret of the trees 

And conned the flowers' dreams. 
I heard His voice when squirrels w^oke 
And dropped an acorn from the oak 

And whisked their bushy tails. 
I heard His voice when Curly Locks 
Drove forth to bathe her feathered flocks. 

And Meg cleaned out the pails. 
I heard His voice when belfry tower 
In lazy notes struck noonday hour 

And cattle shirked the sun. 
I heard His voice when nine was tolled 
And all the sheep had gone to fold. 

And bleated day was dene. 
I heard His voice as midnight crept 
With murky steps o'er men that slept — 

Some pillowed 'neath the sod. 
Yes, even in that silent hour 
I heard in full majestic power 

The m-ighty voice of God. 

M. M. 

419 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Prayer 

T INTO thy Rock, O my soul, uplift thy gaze, 
^^ His loving-kindness day and night implore. 
Remember thy Creator In the days 
Of youth, in song His glorious name adore. 
He Is thy portion through earth's troubled maze, 
Thy shelter, when life's pilgrimage Is o'er. 
Thou knowest that there waits for thee always 
A peaceful resting-place His throne before. 
Therefore the Lord my God I bless and praise, 
Even as all creatures bless Him evermore. 

Solomon Ibn Gabirol. 

Hope for the Salvation of the Lord 

LJOPE for the salvation of the Lord, 
•''"■' In Him I trust, when fears my being thrill; 
Come life, come death, according to his word. 
He Is my portion still. 

• • • • • * • • 

Him will I serve, His am I as of old ; 
I ask not to be free. 



Sweet Is ev'n sorrow coming In His name, 
Nor will I seek Its purpose to explore ; 

His praise will I continually proclaim, 
And bless Him evermore. 

Abraham Ibn Ezra. 

God Everywhere 

'W^HERESOE'ER I turn mine eyes 
^^ Around on Earth or toward the skies, 
I see thee In the starry field, 
I see thee In the harvest's yield. 
In every breath. In every sound. 
An echo of Thy name Is found. 

420 



i 



LITURGICAL 

The blade of grass, the simple flower, 
Bear witness to Thy matchless pow'r. 
My every thought, Eternal God of Heaven, 
Ascends to thee, to whom all praise be given. 

Abraham Ibn Ezra. 
(Translated by D. E. de L.) 



The Living God 

T THIRST for God, to Him my soul aspires, 
The living God it is my heart's desires. 

The living God created me 
To life. Yea, as I live, spake He, 
No living man my face shall see, 
Shall see my face and live. 

He fashioned all with counsel wise 
And purpose w^onderful that lies 
For ever hidden from our eyes. 
The eyes of all who live. 

Supreme o'er all His glory reigns, 
Extolled on earth in holy strains. 
Blessed is He whose hand maintains 
The soul of all who live. 

He separated Israel's seed 
To teach them statutes^ which indeed 
If that a man do hear and heed, 
His soul by them shall live. 

Can pure and just themselves declare 
They who of dust created were? 
Lo, in Thy sight, O Lord, we dare 
Call no man just who lives. 

421 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Like serpent's poison venomous, 

The sinful passion dwells in us, 

Can then from evil cankerous 

Be any free that live? j 

But they the cords of sin who break 
May yet the evil path forsake, 
Ere in that house their rest they take, 
That waits for all who live. 

Call us in merc)^ unto Thee ■ 

Again Thy witnesses to be, 

O Thou, who openest graciously 

Thy hand to all that live. 

Abraham Ibn Ezra. 
(Translated by Alice Lucas.) 



A Song of Life 

POR God, the living Lord, my soul's athirst 
My heart and soul In joyous praise outburst. 

A living God — He gives 
To me creation's call. 
But warneth mortals all ; 
No man sees God and lives. 

Behold His wisdom's might, 
Creating all in light, 
All to Him is clear and bright 
Howso hid from mortal sight. 

Regal in His glory 

In all mouths Its story, 
Blessed ! in whose hand 
Our souls sustained stand. 

422 



LITURGICAL 

Abraham's sons He set apart, 

His laws to them He did impart; 

Wise laws which to the World they give, 

For mortals to obey and live. 

Man cannot do the right: 

Dust is he to Godlike sight: 
For who in Heaven's eye 
His way can justify? 

Base the longing of our heart, 

Envenom'd as the scorpion's dart. 
How can our flesh in life abide 
When sin has seared and mortified? 

Needs must we sinners then 

Repeat our evil courses. . . . When? 
Before we reach the end, the goal, 
Of all that boasts a living soul. 

Enthralled by Thy love. 

We hail Thee, God above! 
That from Thine open hand 
Feedest our living band. 

Sleeping children, Lord! awake: 
Pity for their fathers' sake: 
The promised days to hasten deign 
When Jesse's son once more will reign. 

Regard the mother's truth when tested. 

How shrill the handmaid * hath protested : 

"The dead religion — it is thine, 

The living one is mine, is mine." 
• • • • • • • 

Awestruck I bow the head. 

In prayer my hands I spread, 

God's due from man my lips confess, 

Each soul of life his God must bless. 

Abraham Ibn Ezra. 
(Translated by E. N. A.) 

♦ Hagar to Sarah, i. e., Mahomet to Israel. 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



God, Whom Shall I Compare to Thee? 

r^ OD, whom shall I compare to Thee, 
^^ When Thou to none canst likened be? 
Under what image shall I dare 
To picture Thee, when everywhere 
All Nature's forms Thine impress bear? 

Greater, O Lord, Thy glories are 

Than all the heavenly chariots far. 

Whose mind can grasp Thy world's design? 

Whose word can fitly Thee define ? 

Whose tongue set forth Thy powers divine? 

Can heart approach, can eye behold 
Thee in Thy righteousness untold ? 
Whom did'st Thou to Thy counsel call, 
When there was none to speak withal 
Since Thou was first and Lord of all? 

Thy w^orld eternal w^itness bears 
That none its Maker's glory shares. 
Thy wisdom is made manifest 
In all things formed by Thy behest. 
All with Thy seal's clear mark impress'd. 

Before the pillars of the sky 

WeTe raised, before the mountains high 

Were wrought, ere hills and dales were known, 

Thou in Thy majesty alone 

Did'st sit, O God, upon Thy throne! 

Hearts, seeking Thee, from search refrain, 
And weary tongues their praise restrain. 
Thyself unbound by time and place. 
Thou dost pervade, support, embrace 
The world and all created space. 

424 



LITURGICAL 

The sages' mind bewildered grow, 
The lightning speed of thought is slow. 
"Awful in praises" art Thy name; 
Thou fillest, strong in strength proclaimed, 
This universe Thy hand has framed. 

Deep, deep beyond all fathoming. 
Far, far beyond all measuring 
We can but seek Thy deeds alone ; 
When bow Thy saints before Thy throne, 
Then is Thy faithfulness made known. 

Thy righteousness we can discern. 
Thy holy law proclaim and learn. 
Is not Thy presence near alway 
To them who penitently pray. 
But far from those who sinning stray? 

Pure souls behold Thee, and no need 
Have they of light; they hear and heed 
Thee with the mind's keen ear, although 
The ear of flesh be dull and slow. 
Their voices answer to and fro. 

Thy holiness for ever they proclaim; 

The Lord of Hosts! thrice holy is His name! 

JuDAH Ha-Levi. 
(Translated by Alice Lucas.) 



O Lord, I Call on Thee 

r\ LORD, I call on Thee when sore dismayed, 

^^ Thou wilt hear my voice and lend me aid. 

Nor shall I be of myriads afraid. 

For Thou wilt ever be 

The portion of my lot — Thou savest me. 

425 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

In troubled times Thy mercy's plenteous store 

Is full to overflowing evermore, 

And when in straitness I my plaint outpour 

With vords entreating Thee, 

Then with enlargement Thou dost answer me. 

Make known Thy love to those who trust and pray, 

To those who hold Thy name their help and stay, 

Waiting for Thy salvation day by day, 

Yea, w^ho, O Lord, but Thee 

Shall make me glad, who else deliver me? 

Do Thou from heavenly heights my pain behold, 

And lead me back unto Thy sheltering fold. 

That I may answer scorners as of old ; 

Yea, though my dwelling be 

In darkest night, God is a light to me. 

Abraham Ibn Ezra. 



Lord, Thou Great Jehovah 

pREATOR, Author of all things! 
^^ Thou who didst give to me 
My being, hear me while I pray: 

From evil set me free — 
Give, O give me peace within, 
Tho' unworthy I have been ; 
Help me conquer death and sin — 

Lord, Thou great Jehovah. 

Thy name is love, I know that Thou 

Wilt leave none in despair 
Who seek Thy face ; I know that Thou 

Wilt hear the sinner's prayer — 
Let me clasp Thy hand in mine. 
Let me know Thy peace divine, 
Let my will be lost in Thine — 

Lord, Thou great Jehovah. 

426 



LITURGICAL 

Help me to bear the burden, Lord, 

With patience run the race; 
And when the storms of life are past 

Grant I may see Thy face — 
When earth's night has passed away, 
In bright realms of endless day 
May I dwell with Thee for aye — 

Lord, Thou great Jehovah. 

Albert Frank Hoffmann. 



Lord, Do Thou Guide Me 

When thou passest through the waters, I will be 
with thee ; and through the rivers, they shall not over- 
flow thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou 
shall not be burned ; neither shall the flame kindle 
upon thee. — Isaiah xliii. 2. 



I ORD, do Thou guide me on my pilgrim way. 

Then shall I be at peace, whate'er betide me ; 
Then morn is dark, the clouds hang low and gray, 
Lord, do Thou guide me. 



Let not the mists of sin from Thee divide me. 
But pierce their gloom with mercy's golden ray. 
Then shall I know that Thou in love hast tried me. 
Lord, do Thou guide me. 

O'er rugged paths be Thou my staff and stay. 
Beneath Thy wings from storm and tempest hide me, 
Through life to death, through death to heavenly day. 
Lord, do Thou guide me. 

Alice Lucas. 



427 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Song of the Dew 

PIzmon from the Prayer for Dew of the Musaph 
Service for the First Day of the Passover. — Sephardic 
Liturgy. 

/^ RAIN, depart with blessings, 
^•^ With blessings come, O dew; 
For Mighty to Deliver, 
Is He that sends the dew. 

With psalm and song I'll praise Him, 

In rhythms like the dew ; 
My Rock, my Strong Dellv'rer, 

He Is, that sends the dew. 

His Name with glory covers 

His folk, as earth the dew; 
A Prince to their dellv'rance 

He sends, that sends the dew. 

Hasten, O God, Thy promise — 

"I will be Israel's dew" — 
And Mighty to Deliver, 

Let fall this day Thy dew! 

(Translated by Solomon Soils Cohen.) 



And the Heavens Shall Yield Their Dew 

OTHOU, that art the Trust, the Strength, 
The Shield of all that live, 
Who givest food to man and beast, 

Our year's perfection give — 
The crowning cloud of summer rain 

Or, from night's cloudless blue. 
The gentle drops whereof Thou saldst, 
"And the heavens shall jaeld their dew!" 

428 



LITURGICAL 

On waving grain, on mead and wood, 

Let drops of blessing fall, 
That all Thy children may have bread, 

And healing be for all ; 
But them that study in Thy Law, 

And to Thy Charge are true. 
Exalt in splendor like the stars. 
Whilst the heavens shall yield their dew! 

Make green the pastures of the wild, 

Girdle the hills with mirth ; 
With bright-hued zone of budding flowers 

Cincture the gladsome earth. 
All they together shall rejoice. 

And sing His praise anew, 
Whose loving bounty shall not fail ; 
Whose heavens shall yield their dew! 

To clothe with leaf and deck with bud 

The naked, tender vine, 
That weary souls may be refreshed 

With heartening draughts of wine; 
And hungry souls be filled with good, 

And toil its strength renew 
Through luscious feast of ripened fruit — 
Bid Thy heavens to yield their dew! 

The trees of God are full of sap. 

In valley and on hill ; 
The threshing floors piled high with corn; 

Wine, oil, the vats o'erfill ; 
Where ruin was, a ransomed folk 

Upbuilds its homes anew. 
And all the land resounds with song — 
"And the heavens shall yield their dew!" 

Solomon Ibn Gabirol. 
(Translated by Solomon Solis -Cohen.) 



429 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The Burning of the Law 

A SK, is It well, O thou consumed of fire, 
*^ With those that mourn for thee. 
That yearn to tread thy courts, that sore desire 
Thy sanctuary; 

That, panting for thy land's sweet dust, are grieved, 

And sorrow in their souls, 
And by the flames of wasting fire bereaved, 

Mourn for thy scrolls; 

That grope in shadow of unbroken night, 

Waiting the day to see 
Which o'er them yet shall cast a radiance bright, 

And over thee? 

Ask of the welfare of the man of woe, 

With breaking heart, in vain 
Lamenting ever for thine overthrow, 

And for thy pain; 

Of him that crieth as the jackals cry. 

As owls their moaning make. 
Proclaiming bitter wailing far and nigh; 

Yea, for Thy sake. 

And thou revealed amid a heavenly fire, 

By earthly fire consumed. 
Say how the foe unscorched escaped the pyre 

Thy flames illumed ! 

How long shalt thou that art at ease abide 

In peace, unknown to woe. 
While o'er my flowers, humbled from their pride. 

Thy nettles grow? 

Thou sittest high exalted, lofty foe! 

To judge the sons of God ; 
And with thy judgments stern dost bring them low 

Beneath thy rod. 

430 



LITURGICAL 

Yea, more, to burn the Law thou durst decree — 

God's word to banish hence; 
Then blest be he who shall award to thee 

Thy recompense! 

Was It for this, thou Law, my Rock of old 

Gave thee with flames begirt. 
That in thine after-days should fire seize hold 

Upon thy skirt? 

O Sinai ! was it then for this God chose 

Thy mount of modest height. 
Rejecting statelier, while on thee arose 

His glorious light? 

Wast thou an omen that from noble state 

The Law should lowly be? 
And lo ! a parable will I relate 

Befitting thee. 

'Tis of a king I tell, who sat before 

The banquet of his son 
And wept: for 'mid the mirth he death foresaw; 

So thou hast done. 

Cast ofi thy robe ; in sackcloth folds of night, 

Sinai! cover thee; 

Don widow's garb, discard thy raiment bright 
Of royalty. 

Lo, I will weep for thee until my tears 

Swell as a stream and flow 
Unto the graves where Thy two princely seers 

Sleep calm below: 

Moses and Aaron in the Mountain Hor; 

1 will of them inquire: 

Is there another to replace this Law 
Devoured of fire? 

. 431 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

thou third month most sacred! woe Is me 
For treason of the fourth, 

Which dimmed the sacred light that shone from thee 
And kindled wrath; 

And break the tablets, yea, and still did rage: 

And lo! the Law Is burnt! 
Ye sinful! Is not this the twofold wage 

Which ye have earnt ? 

Dismal hath seized upon my soul ; how, then, 

Can food be sweet to me, 
When, O thou Law, I have beheld base men 

Destroying thee? 

They cast thee out as one despised, and burn 

The wealth of God Most High ; 
They whom from thine assembly thou wouldst spurn 

From drawing nigh. 

1 cannot pass along the highway more, 

Nor seek thy ways forlorn ; 
How do thy paths their loneliness deplore! 
Lo! how they mourn! 

The mingled cup shall taste as honey sweet 

Where tears o'erbrim the wine ; 
Yea, and thy chains upon my shackled feet 

Are joy divine. 

Sweet would It be unto mine eyes alway 

A rain of tears to pour, 
To sob and drench thy sacred robes, till they 

Could hold no more. 

But lo! my tears are dried, when, fast outpoured, 

They down my cheeks are shed ; 
Scorched by the fire within : because thy Lord 

Hath turned and fled. 

432 



LITURGICAL 

Taking His holy treasure, He hath made 

His journey far away; 
And with Him hath not thy protecting shade 

Vanished for aye? 

And I am desolate and sore bereft, 

Lo ! a forsaken one : 
Like a sole beacon on a mountain left, 

A tower alone. 

I hear the voice of singers now no more, 

Silence their song hath bound ; 
The strings are broken which on harps of 3'ore 

Breathed forth sweet sound. 

In sackcloth I will clothe and sable band, 

For well-beloved by me 
Were they whose lives were many as the sand — 

The slain of thee. 

I am astonished that the day's fair light 

Yet shineth brilliantly 
On all things: — it is ever dark as night 

To me and thee. 

Send with a bitter cry to God above 

Thine anguish, nor withhold : 
Ah! that He would remember j^et His love. 

His troth of old ! 

Gird on the sackcloth of thy misery 

For that devouring fire, 
Which burst forth ravenous on thine and thee 

With wasting dire. 

E'en as thy Rock hath sore afflicted thee, 

He will assuage thy woe, 
Will turn again the tribes' captivity, 

And raise the low. 

433 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Yet shalt thou wear thy scarlet raiment choice, 

And sound the timbrels high, 
And yet amid the dancers shalt rejoice 

With gladdened cry. 

My heart shall be uplifted on the day 

The Rock shall be thy light, 
When He shall make thy gloom to pass away, 

Thy darkness bright. 

Meir of Rothenberg. 

(Translated by Nina Davis.) 

The Royal Crown 

]\/[Y God, I know that those who plead 
^^^ To thee for grace and mercy need 
All their good works should go before 
And wait for them at heaven's high door. 
But no good deed have I to bring, 
No righteousness for offering. 
No service for my Lord and King. 

Yet hide not thou thy face from me, 
Nor cast me out afar from thee; 
But when thou bidd'st my life to cease, 
O mayst thou lead me forth in peace 
Unto the world to come, to dwell 
Among the pious ones, who tell 
Thy glories inexhaustible. 

There let my portion be with those 

Who to Eternal life arose; 

There purify my heart aright. 

In thy light to behold the light. 

Raise me from deepest depths to share 

Heaven's endless joys of praise and prayer. 

That I may evermore declare. 

Though thou wast angered, Lord, I will give thanks 

to thee. 
For past Is now thy wrath, and thou dost comfort me. 

Israel Abrahams. 

434 



LITURGICAL 
New Year Hymn 

r^ ONE another year — 
^^ Gone beyond recall; 
Gone its smile and tear, 

Gone its joy and thrall. 
Vain is now lament, 

Naught canst thou efface ; 
Though thou now repent 

Naught canst thou erase. 

Dawns another year — 

Open it aright; 
Thou shalt have no fear 

In its fading light. 
Live that not a stain, 

Live that not a deed 
May awaken pain, 

May erasure need. 

Joseph Krauskopf. 



The Royal Crown 

LJOW shall I stand before Thee, Lord, and I am 

* •*• bowed with shame? 

For e'en as I am poor and humble, exalted is Thy 

name! 
E'en as my mortal might is weak and limited, Thy 

power is eternal, infinite. 
Sorely wanting as I am. Almighty! Thou art perfect 

and complete! 
For Thou art One, the only living God, who dost 

exist for aye. 
Thou art wise and Thy might and majesty endure 

alway, 

435 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And I am wrought of dust and for the earth destined, 
Full of error, helpless as a stone upon the way and 

blind— 
A flitting shadow, a wind that passeth and returneth 

not — 
Wrathful as a serpent, of stony heart and harboring 

all evil thought! 
Yea, of proud and boastful mien, of unclean lips, a 

mortal vain 
Who followeth his heart's desire, and counsel doth 

despise, and thought disdain. 
For what I am and what Is even this my life and 

power ? 
What fruit may bear my righteousness through life's 

e'er-changeful hour? 
I know not whence I come, nor whither I am bound ! 
Before Thy might in awe I stand, bowed low unto 

the ground! Solomon Ibn Gabirol. 

(Translated by Rebecca A. Altman.) 

Servant of God 
{Hymn for the Day of Atonement) 

r\ WOULD that I might be 

^^ A servant unto Thee, 

Thou God of all adored ! 

Then, though by friends outcast. 

Thy hand would hold me fast, 

And draw me near to Thee, my King and Lord. 

Spirit and flesh are Thine, 

O Heavenly Shepherd mine; 

My hopes, my thoughts, my fears. Thou seest all, 

Thou measurest my path, my steps dost know 

When Thou upholdest, who can make me fall ? 

When Thou restrainest, who can bid me go? 

O would that I might be 

A servant unto Thee, 

Thou God by all adored. 

Then, though by friends outcast, 

436 



LITURGICAL 

Thy hand would hold me fast, 

And draw me near to Thee, my King and Lord. 

Fain would my heart come nigh 

To Thee, O God on high, 

But evil thoughts have led me far astray 

From the pure path of righteous government. 

Guide Thou me back into Thy holy way, 

And count me as one impenitent. 

O would that I might be 

A servant unto Thee, 

Thou God, by all adored ! 

Then, though by friends outcast, 

Thy hand would hold me fast. 

And draw me near to Thee, my King and Lord. 

If in my youth I still 

Fail to perform Thy will. 

What can I hope when age shall chill my breast? 

Heal me, O Lord ; with Thee is healing found. 

Cast me not off, by weight of years oppress'd, 

Forsake me not when age my strength has bound. 

would that I might be 
A servant unto Thee, 
Thou God, by all adored! 
Then, though by friends outcast, 
Thy hand would hold me fast. 

And draw me near to Thee, my King and Lord. 

Contrite and full of dread, 

1 mourn each moment fled, 
'Mid idle follies roaming desolate, 

I sink beneath transgressions manifold 

That from Thy presence keep me separate. 

Nor can sin-darkened eyes Thy light behold. 

O would that I might be 

A servant unto Thee, 

Thou God by all adored! 

Then, though by friends outcast. 

Thy hand would hold me fast, 

And draw me near to Thee, my King and Lord. 

437 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

So lead me that I may 

Thy sovereign will obey; 

Make pure my heart to seek Thy truth divine, 

When burns my wound, be Thou with healing 

near! 
Answer me, Lord ! for sore distress is mine, 
And say unto Thy servant, I am here. 
O would that I might be 
A servant unto Thee, 
Thou God, by all adored ! 
Then, though by friends outcast, 
. Thy hand would hold me fast. 

And draw me near to Thee, my King and Lord. 

JuDAH Ha-Levi. 
(Translated by Israel Zangwill.) 

Yea, More Than They 

V/ EA, more than they, who through the gloomy night, 
^ Through sleepless hours that loiter on their way, 
Watch for the dawn above the eastern height. 
Yea, more than they. 

Watching and waiting for return of day 

My soul waits for the Lord, the Lord of might, 
With whom forgiveness is, my hope and stay. 

And when His mercy thrills my soul contrite. 
My soul rejoices in His pardoning ray, 

More than they joy to see the morning light. 

Yea, more than they. j^^^^^ Lucas. 



Adonai Melech 

A Yom Kippur Hymn {Sephardic Liturgy) 

pRE space exists, or earth or sky, 
^ The Lord is King! 
Ere sun or star shone forth on high, 
The Lord was King ! 

438 



LITURGICAL 

When earth shall be a robe outworn, 
And sky shall fade like mists of morn, 

Still shall the Lord fore'er be King! 
The Lord is King! The Lord was King! Forever 
shall the Lord be King! 

When earth He flings mid star-filled space, 

The Lord is King! 
When living creatures there found place. 

The Lord was King! 
When homeward from earth's corners four. 
He calls the scattered folk once more, 

Then shall the Lord fore'er be King! 
The Lord is King! The Lord was King! Forever 
shall the Lord be King! 

(Translated by Solomon Solis Cohen.) 



Thee I TV ill Seek 

HTHEE I will seek, to Thee unveil my breast, 
O great in Judah and in Israel blest. 
For He who searches mortals understands 
How truly my transgressions are confest. 

Ah, verily, not one of us is just! 

Thy myriad mercies save us from the dust; 

Lo, unto Thee we stretch our guilty hands, 
And in Thy holy Name we put our trust. 

We put our trust, for 'tis our soul's delight 
To seek in humbleness Thy shield of might; 

Thy strength is all the refuge of the poor, 
And lowly souls Thou placest on the height. 

The haughtiness of upstarts I have borne, 
Unsated and unceasing is their scorn ; 

Lo ! w^e are wasted of the tyrant boor 
Who left the helpless utterly forlorn. 

439 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Before Thy mercy-seat the beggars pray, 
Their sins confest, abandoned in dismay; 
Lo, pardon them and be no longer vext, 
For is it not the dread Atonement Day? 

O Thou in majesty and glory girt, 
Be pitiful and trample sin to dirt ; 

Lo! sweet as honey tastes the holy text, 
'Tor He is one who healeth those He hurt." 

Yea! He will heal and all shall bless His name, 
He will remove the burden of our blame; 
Before His face His people shall avow 
The sins presumption added to their shame. 

Both these, and those from ignorance that mount, 
O cease, according to their plea, to count ; 

Lo, life eternal set upon their brow, 
For, Lord, in Thee is life's eternal fount. 

To all who worship Thee grant life and grace. 
Their heart's perversity from them erase; 

Let sprinkled water purify each soul. 
And let the dew revive each stony place. 

With dew, O lave Thy lambs from stain and flake, 
It is the hour, forgiveness is awake. 

Lo! cleanse them as 'tis written in the Scroll, 
"For on this day he shall Atonement make." 

And this Atonement shall not be less good, 
Than w^hen the altar in the Temple stood. 

Lo! known to Him each sinew of my breast. 
My reins are fashioned by His fatherhood. 

My inward parts I'll fit for serving Thee, 
So due acceptance greet Thy servant's plea. 
For whoso honors Thee Thou honorest. 
Thou sole-exalted in sublimity. 

440 



LITURGICAL 

On Thee alone must rest the hope of man, 
Iniquities Thou wilt not strictly scan ; 

Lo! God the righteous loves not punishment, 
His ways transcend the little human plan. 

'TIs of the deed Itself I am afraid, 
Lest by my sin I shall be duly paid ; 

Yet Him I trust, and wait In dumb assent; 
Repentance ever brought consoling aid. 

From soul-afHIctlon did I comfort win. 
Confessing every public, private sin ; 

Lo! this Is the appointed Judgment Day, 
A covenant eternal set within. 

The day of pardon set to wean from vice, 
Remorse replacing ancient sacrifice. 

Ah, could I but beneath His shadow stay. 
He knows the weakness of my own device. 

The wonders of Thy grace let me explore. 

When Thou Thy sheep and lambs art counting o'er; 

Lo! this Thy flock is shepherded of Thee, 
Nor e'er forgets the wonders wrought of yore. 

Renew Thy deeds to save Thy faithful flock, 
The fear of Thee Is all their treasure-stock; 

Ah, let the foes who judge us learn to S'^e 
How little is their rock beside our Rock. 

When "Israel's Holy Rock" the heathen cry, 
God in their eyes Himself shall sanctify. .. i^ 

Thus righteousness In these He brings to bud, 
Down-looking from His holy place on high. 

He will restore the Temple and Ifs laws. 
The glory of His presence there shall pause ; 

Lo ! men shall tremble when the Judge of blood 
Arises to espouse His people's cause. 

441 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Ah, side with us, make hostile clamor cease, 
Thy people from accusing tongues release, 

So Thy beloved shall rechant Thy praise ; 
For happiness awaits the sons of peace. 

Then let Thy peace irradiate all things. 
Account our orisons as offerings; 

Ah, flood us with Thy Presence as with rays, 
From Zion goes the Law, the prophet sings: 

That Law the faithful heard at Sinai, 

To which they brought attentive ear and eye, 

Lo! God this day His faithful nation thanks, 
He is a God who softens at our cry. 

The Lord shall lead us even after death. 

He saves from wrath and pain our mortal breath ; 

Lo ! arrogance as ignorance He ranks, 
"It is My people's ignorance," He saith. 

Simeon ben Isaac ben Abun. 

(Translated by Israel Zangwull.) 

Even as the Daily Offering 

Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow 
myself before the high God ? Shall I come before him 
with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old ? . . . 
He hath shewed thee O man, what is good ; and what 
doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and 
to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God? — 
Mich, vii 6 and 8. 

JUDGE of the earth who wilt arraign 
The nations at Thy judgment seat. 
With life and favour bless again 

Thy prostrate people at Thy feet. 
And mayest Thou our morning prayer 
Receive, O Lord, as though it were 
The offering that was wont to be 
Brought day by day continually. 

442 



LITURGICAL 

Thou who art clothed with righteousness, 

Supreme exalted over all, 
How oftsoever we transgress, 

Do Thou with pardoning love recall 
Those who in Hebron sleep ; and let 
Their memory live before Thee yet, 
Even as the offering unto Thee 
Offered of old continually. 

Trust in God's strength and be ye strong. 

My people and His laws obey. 
Then will He pardon sin and wrong, 

Then mercy will His wrath outweigh. 
Seek ye His presence and implore 
His countenance forevermore. 
Then shall your prayers accepted be 
As offerings brought continually. 

Solomon ben Abun. 
(Translated, by Alice Lucas.) 



Supplication 

(Paraphrased from the Hebrew of R. Jose ben Jose.) 

/^UR sins are many, and we sigh 

^""^ For that we hearkened not to Thee 

When all the time we knew Thee nigh, 

But proud in our prosperity 
We w^ent our ways with head on high. 

Now wasted is our strength, and we 
Are like an armless soldier grown ; 

All that our fathers wrought for Thee 
Is nought, and now we stand alone 

In shame and dire infirmity. 

443 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

We are like stubble on the plain 

That no one seeks to gather In 
Or load upon the harvest wain — 

Consuming fire will purge our sin 
And lead us pure to Thee again. 

O Lord, Thy seal accounts us Thine; 

Of yore when in our dire distress 
' We craved Thy charity divine, 

Thou didst us with Thy mercy bless; 
O be Thou in this hour benign! 

The driven leaf let healing cure. 
Repent Thee for this human dust. 

O cleanse us that we may be pure, 

Let all our sins from Thee be thrust — 

Thy mercy is for ever sure ! 

Jose ben Jose. 



Lo! As the Potter Moiildeth 

T O! as the potter mouldeth plastic clay 
""-^ To forms his varying fancy doth display; 
So in Thy hand, O God of love, are we: 
Thy bond regard, let sin be veil'd from Thee. 

Lo! as the mason's hand the block doth hew 
To shapes sublime, or into fragments strew; 
So in Thy hand, O God of life, are we: 
Thy bond regard, let sin be veil'd from Thee. 

Lo! as the smith the rigid steel hath bent, 
Soften'd with fire and wrought with strength unspent; 
So in Thy hand, O God of might, are we: 
Thy bond regard, let sin be veil'd from Thee. 

Lo ! as the seaman's hand doth cast or weigh 
The pond'rous anchor In the foaming spray; 
So In Thy hand, O God of pardon, we: 
Thy bond regard, let sin be veil'd from Thee. 

444 



LITURGICAL 

Lo! as the worker melteth vitreous flow, 
And shapeth vessels from the crystal blow; 
So In Thy hand, O God of grace, are we: 
Thy bond regard, let sin be veil'd from Thee. 

Lo! as th' embroid'rer's hand the robe hath made, 
At will In lines of beauty, light and shade; 
So in Thy hand, O God of fear, are we: 
Thy bond regard, let sin be veil'd from Thee. 

Lo! as the smelter fuseth silv'ry vein, 
Removing dross, that naught impure remain; 
So in Thy hand, O God of healing, we: 
Thy bond regard, let sin be veil'd from Thee. 

Lo! as the potter mouldeth plastic clay 
To forms his varying fancy doth display; 
So In Thy hand, O God of love, are we: 
Thy bond regard, let sin be veil'd from Thee. 

Elsie Davis. 

Happy He Who Saw of Old 

LJAPPY he who saw of old 

■*■ The high priest, with gems and gold 
All adorned from crown to hem. 
Tread thy courts, Jerusalem, 
Till he reached the sacred place 
Where the Lord's especial grace 
Ever dwelt, the centre of the whole. 
Happy he whose eyes 
Saw at last the cloud of glory rise, 
But to hear of it afflicts our soul. 

Happy he that day who saw 
How, with reverence and awe 
And with sanctity of mien, 
Spoke the priest: "Ye shall be clean 

445 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

From your sins before the Lord." 

Echoed long the holy word, 

While around the fragrant incense stole. 

Happy he whose eyes 

Saw at last the cloud of glory rise, 

But to hear of it afflicts our soul. 

Happy he who saw the crowd, 

That in adoration bowed, 

As they heard the priest proclaim: 

"One, Ineffable, the Name," 

And they answered, ''Blessed be 

God the Lord eternally. 

He whom all created worlds extol." 

Happy he whose eyes 

Saw at last the cloud of glory rise. 

But to hear of it afflicts our soul. 

Happy he who saw the priest 

Turning toward the shining East, 

And, with solemn gladness thrilled, 

Read the doctrine that distilled 

As the dew upon the plain. 

As the showers of gentle rain. 

While he raised on high the sacred scroll. 

Happy he whose eyes 

Saw at last the cloud of glory rise, 

But to hear of It afflicts our soul. 

Happy he who saw the walls 
Of the temple's radiant halls, 
Where the golden cherubim 
Hide the ark's recesses dim. 
Heard the singer's choral song. 
Saw the Levites' moving throng, 
Saw the golden censer and the bowl. 
Happy he whose eyes 
Saw at last the cloud of glory rise. 
But to hear of it afflicts our soul. 

446 



LITURGICAL 

Ever thus the burden rang 

Of the pious songs they sang. 

All the glories past and gone 

Israel once did gaze upon, 

Glories of the sacred fane, 

Which they mourned and mourned again, 

With a bitterness beyond control. 

Happy he whose eyes 

Saw (they said) the cloud of glory rise, 

But to hear of it afflicts our soul. 

Solomon Ibn Gabirol. 
(Translated by Alice Lucas.) 

The Lifting of Mine Hands 

''PHE lifting of mine hands accept of me 
*" As though it were pure evening sacrifice, 
And let my prayer be incense of sweet spice 
Accounted right and perfect unto Thee. 
And when I call Thee, hear; for day once more 
Sinks to the hour when Israel brought of yore 
The evening sacrifice. 

My words before Thee shall be savours sweet, 
O everlasting Rock; and all the waste 
Of strength and body spent in this my fast 

Shall seem to Thee a sacrifice complete. 

Take mine heart's prayer, which, these ten days within, 

I have prepared like offerings for sin 
And evening sacrifice. 

Seek them this day that seek Thee; let them find 
Thy mercy, sought from Thee by their lips' fruit, 
Look at their throng assembled destitute ; 

Cleanse them like silver seven times refined. 

Accept their prayer like one lamb, where there stand 

Two hundred sheep from Israel's pasture-land 
For evening sacrifice. 

447 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Count It a whole burnt offering when I call; 

Prevail with him that Is my wrongful foe. 

O make my righteousness like light to glow 
Before the sun shall set and evening fall. 
Each man pours out his heart In this his word, 
And brings his gift to offer to the Lord 
An evening sacrifice. 

Jeshurun, thy people, of Thy mercy sing, 
Holding a goodly doctrine; bend Thine ear, 
Open Thine eyes on them, and see, and hear 

How good It Is to stand thus tarrying 

At portals of Thy pity, till Thou lift 

Out of the hand of him that brings his gift 
An evening sacrifice. 

In Thy great mercy hear and understand 
My words, my meditation; if I hold 
Grace In Thy sight, O God, Who from of old 
Hast been a dwelling-place, then from mine hand 
Take Thou the gift I bring Thee, pleading here 
With supplication when the hour draws near 
For evening sacrifice. 

God whom we have not found, whose might Is whole 
For them. Thou madest Thine In ages gone, 
If man give much or little 'tis all one — 
When he returns Thou wilt accept his soul — 
If but his heart be true when he shall draw 
Night with his offering: this Is all the law 
Of evening sacrifice. 

When sanctuary and altar stood of old 
Within their border on the ancient spot, 
They made atonement, choosing forth by lot 
He-goats for offering; now. If God should hold 
That our trangression should our death demand. 
He would not take burnt offering from our hand 
Nor evening sacrifice. 

448 



LITURGICAL 

But supplications do Th}^ people speak, 
Seeking forgiveness with a bitter heart ; 
Behold them standing at the siege apart, 
Watching, entreating Thee whose face they seek, 
Hoping Thou wilt give respite for their debt 
At even — saying "I shall appease him yet 
With evening sacrifice." 

Jerusalem Thy city build again, 

And all her cities strengthen round about, 
And her oppressed prisoners bring out 
To freedom, loosened from the binding chain. 
Sweet be their offering as in days of yore. 
And Thou wilt turn, Thou wilt accept once more 
Their evening sacrifice. 

All Israel's outcasts, Judah's scattered ones 
Shall yet again be gathered to Thine hand, 
And fed as by a shepherd in good land ; 
And God shall sit refining Israel's sons 
Like gold until their cleansing shall be wrought 
And they shall be to Him as though they brought 
An evening sacrifice. 

MORDECAI BEN ShABBETHAI. 

(Translated by Nina Davis.) 



Since We Be Standing 

CINCE we be standing even ^^et, to be 

As ministers before Thee in Thy Name, 
And spread our hands out, having naught for Thee 

Of that oblation wherewith once we came — 
Hear now, O Lord, Thy people's, voice and hold 
Their crying for their sacrifice of old. 

That He m.aintain the cause of His servant and the 

cause of His people Israel, as every day shall 

require. 

449 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

All those who watched Thy doors have passed away, 
Who guarded for Thy treasury its due; 

There is no ofE'ring and no gift this day, 

And still can justice pierce a mountain through, 

Yet so shall Jacob's sin be purged at last, 

And his atonement made in this his fast. 

See, for the coin for of^'ring faileth now, 
The silver of the ransom for my soul; 

But wherefore, O my soul, art stricken low? 
Nay, bless the Lord and verily extol. 

For He will soon repent Him for His own 

Judging His people from the eternal throne* 

A day of pardon is appointed us 

To make repentance for our souls therein; 
Yea, though Thine altar still be empty thus, 

Our soul's affliction pleadeth for our sin. 
Of old our fathers trusted in Thy Name, 
They trusted, and from Thee redemption came. 

Because the hand was once sent forth to lay 
Their dwelling-places low, their cities fair. 

No off'ring hath been brought Thee since the day 
The sanctuary was wasted and laid bare. 

Yet vengeance on His foemen He will take, 

And make atonement for His people's sake. 

For incense brought to Thee, which is no more. 
Mine orison shall drop as fragrant spice; 

The prayer of the afflicted, burdened sore, 
Shall be a handful sweet for sacrifice; 

So that he may not perish in the pit. 

Nor want for bread nor go forth lacking. 

Keep Thou the portal of my lips, accept 

Their gift as that brought once In priestly hand ; 

Let those who call on stocks or trees be swept 
From where my fathers prayed on hallowed land. 

Yet, let the Lord to jealousy be moved 

For His own land, and pity those He loved. 

• 450 



LITURGICAL 

Since we be standing even yet, to be 

As ministers before Thee in Thy Name, 

And spread our hands out, having naught for Thee 
Of that oblation wherewith once we came — 

Hear now, O Lord, Thy people's voice, and hold 

Their crying for their sacrifice of old. 

That He maintain the cause of His servant and the 

cause of KIs people Israel, as every day shall 

require. 

Ephraim ben Isaac. 

(Translated by Nina Davis.) 



I Am the Suppliant 

T AM the suppliant for my people here, 
•*■ Yea, for the House of Israel, I am he; 
I seek my God's benign and heedful ear, 
For words that rise from me. 

Amid the walls of hearts that stand around, 
My bitter sighs surge up to mount the sky; 

Ah ! how my heart doth part with ceaseless bound 
For God, my Rock on high. 

With mighty works and wondrous He hath wrought, 
Lord of my strength, my God. When me He bade 

To make a sanctuary for Him, I sought, 
I labored, and 'twas made. 

The Lord my God, He hath fulfilled His word — 

He ruleth as an all-consuming fire — 
I came with sacrifice, my prayer He heard. 

He granted my desire. 

My sprinkling He accepted at the dawn 
Of this, the holiest day, the chosen one. 

When with the daily offering of the morn 
The High Priest had begun. 

451 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And when the services thereafter came 
In glorious order, each a sacred rite, 

I, bending low, and calling on the Name, 
Confessed before His sight. 

The holy Priests, the ardent, for their sin 
Upon this day made their atonement then, 

With blood of bullocks and of goats, within 
The city full of men. 

The Priest with glowing censer seemed as one 
Preparing for the pure a way by fire. 

I brought two rams and entered as a son 
That cometh to his sire. 

The bathings and ablutions, as 'twas meet. 
Were all performed according to their way; 

Then passed before the throne of God complete 
The service of the day. 

And when sweet strains of praise to glorify 
Burst forth in psalmody and songs of love, 

Yea, when I heard the voice uplifted high, 
I raised mine hand above. 

The rising clouds of incense mantled o'er 
The mercy-seat within its sacred space: 

Then glory filled me and my soul would soar 
To yon exalted place. 

Of ancient times I dream, of vanished days; 

Now wild disquiet rageth unrestrained ; 
Scorned and reproached by all from godly ways 

Have I, alas, refrained. 

Afar mine eyes have strayed and I have erred, 
Even the hearing of mine ears I quelled ; 

And righteous is the Lord, for at His word 
I sorely have rebelled. 

452 



LITURGICAL 

Perverseness have I loved, and wrongful thought, 
And hating good, strove righteousness to shun, 

And In mine actions foolishness have wrought; 
Great evil have I done. 

Pardon I pray Thee, our Iniquity, 

O God, from Thine high dwelling, and behold 
The souls that in affliction weep to Thee — 

For lo! I have grown old. 

Work for me, I beseech Thee, marvels now, 
O Lord of Hosts! In mercy lull our fears; 

Answer with potent signs and be not Thou 
Silent to all my tears. 

Open Thine hand exalted, nor revile 

The hearts not comforted, but pierced with care. 
Praying with fervent lips, that know not guile, 

O hearken to my prayer! 

Baruch ben Samuel. 
(Translated by Nina Davis.) 



All the World Shall Co7ne to Serve Thee 

A LL the world shall come to serve Thee 
"^^ And bless Thy glorious Name, 
And Thy righteousness triumphant 

The Islands shall acclaim. 
And the peoples shall go seeking 

Who knew Thee not before, 
And the ends of earth shall praise Thee, 

And tell Thy greatness o'er. 

They shall build for Thee their altars. 

Their idols overthrown, 
And their graven gods shall shame them, 

As they turn to Thee alone, 

453 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

They shall worship Thee at sunrise, 

And feel Thy Kingdom's might, 
And impart their understanding 

To those astray in night. 

They shall testify Thy greatness. 

And of Thy power speak, 
And extol Thee, shrined, uplifted 

Beyond man's highest peak. 
And with reverential homage, jl 

Of love and wonder born, 
With the ruler's crown of beauty 

Thy head they shall adorn. 

With the coming of Thy Kingdom 

The hills shall break into song, 
And the islands laugh exultant 

That they to God belong. 
And all their congregations 

So loud Thy praise shall sing, 
That the uttermost peoples hearing. 

Shall hail Thee crowded King. 

(Translated by Israel Zangwill.) 



In the Height and Depth of His Burning 

TN the height and depth of His burning, 
•■' Where mighty He sits on the throne. 
His light He unveils and His yearning 

To all who revere Him alone. 
His promises never are broken. 

His greatness all measure exceeds; 
Then exalt Him who gives you for token 

His marvellous deeds. 

He marshals the planets unbounded. 

He numbers the infinite years ; 
The seat of His empire is founded 

More deep than the nethermost spheres; 

454 



LITURGICAL 

He looks on the lands from His splendor; 

They tremble and quiver like reeds; 
Then exalt ye in lowly surrender 

His marvellous deeds. 

The worlds He upholds in their flying, 

His feet on the footstool of earth; 
His word hath established undying 

Whatever His word brought to birth. 
The ruler of hosts is His title; 

Then exalt Him in worshipful creeds, 
Declaring in solemn recital 

His marvellous deeds. 

He is master of all He created, 

Sublime in His circle of light; 
His strength with His glory is mated, 

His greatness at one with His might. 
So that Seraphim over Him winging, 

Obeying an angel that leads, 
Unite in the rapture of singing 

His marvellous deeds. 

His renown fills the heavenly spaces: 

The world He beholds to its ends : 
His foes, who are mine, too. He chases; 

I count all who love Him my friends. 
Exalted be therefore His glory, 

His praises be scattered as seeds, 
Till all the world learns the great story. 

His marvellous deeds. 

But of man — ah! the tale is another, 

His counsels are evil and vain: 
He dwells with deceit as a brother. 

And the worm is the close of his reign. 
Into earth he is carted and shovelled, 

And who shall recount or who heeds, 
When above earth he strutted or grovelled, 

His marvellous deeds? 

455 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Not so God ! — earth on nothing He founded, 

And on emptiness stretched out the sky; 
With land the great waters He bounded, 

And bade all their breeds multiply. 
In light He is clad as a raiment: 

His greatness no eulogy needs; 
Yet exalt, 'tis your only repayment. 

His marvellous deeds. 

Meshullam Ben Kalonymus. 
(Translated by Israel Zangwill.) 



Lord, I Remember 

T ORD, I remember, and am sore amazed 
To see each city standing in her state. 
And God's own city to the low grave razed: 
Yet in all time we look to Thee and wait. 

Send us Thy mercy, O Redeemer! Make, 

O Thou my soul, to Him thy mournful plaint; 

And crave compassion for my people's sake : 
Each head is weary and each heart is faint. 

I rest on pillars, on God's holy parts, 

On tears that flow with never-ceasing might; 

I pour out prayer to Him who searcheth hearts: 
Herein I trust, and in the Father's right. 

O Thou who hearest weeping, healest woe. 
Our tears within Thy vase of cr3^stal store; 

Save us, and all Thy dread decrees forego. 
For unto Thee our eyes turn evermore. 

MORDECAI BEN ShABBETHAI. 

(Translated by Nina Davis.) 



456 



IV 
NATIONAL 



NATIONAL 



Hatikvah — A Song of Hope 

r\ WHILE within a Jewish breast 
^^ Beats true a Jewish heart, 

And Jewish glances turning East 
To ZIon fondly dart, — 

CHORUS 

O then our Hope — It is not dead, 
Our ancient Hope and true, 

Again the sacred soil to tread 
Where David's banners flew! 

O while the tears flow down apace. 
And fall like bounteous rain. 

And to the Fathers' resting-place 
Sweeps on the mournful train, — -j. 

And while upon our eager eye 

Flashes the City's wall, 
And for the wasted Sanctuary 

The tear-drops trembling fall, — 

O while the Jordan's pent-up tide 
Leaps downward rapidly, 

And while its gleaming waters glide 
Through Galilee's blue sea, — 

And while upon the Highway there 
Lowers the stricken Gate, 

And from the Ruins Zion's prayer 
Upriseth passionate, — 

O while the pure floods of her eyes 
Flow for her People's plight, 

And Zion's Daughter doth arise 
And weep the long, long night! — 

459 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

O while through vein in ceaseless stream 
The bright blood pulses yet, 

And on our Fathers' tombs doth gleam 
The dew when sun is set! — 

Hear, Brothers mine, where e'er ye be, 
This Truth by Prophet won ; 

" 'Tis then our Hope shall cease to be 
With Israel's last son!" — 

Naphtali Herz Imber. 
(Translated by Henry Snowman.) 



Zionist Marching Song 

I 

I IKE the crash of the thunder 
^-^ Which splitteth asunder 

The flame of the cloud, 
On our ears ever falling, 
A voice is heard calling 

From Zion aloud: 
"Let your spirits' desires 
For the land of your sires 

Eternally burn. 
From the foe to deliver 
Our own holy river, 

To Jordan return." 
Where the soft, flowing stream 
Murmurs low as in dream, 

There set we our watch. 
Our watchword "The sword 
Of our land and our Lord — " 

By Jordan there set we our watch. 

II 

Rest in peace, loved land. 
For we rest not, but stand, 

460 



NATIONAL 

Off shaken our sloth. 
When the bolts of war rattle 
To shirk not the battle, 

We make thee our oath, 
As we hope for a Heaven, 
Thy chains shall be riven, 

Thine ensign unfurled. 
And in pride of our race 
We will fearlessly face 

The might of the world. 
When our trumpet is blown 
And our standard is flown, 

Then set we our watch. 
Our watchword, "The sword 
Of our land and our Lord — " 

By Jordan then set we our watch. 

Ill 

Yea, as long as there be 
Birds in air, fish in sea, 

And blood in our veins; 
And the lions in might, 
Leaping down from the height, 

Shake, roaring, their manes; 
And the dew nightly laves 
The forgotten old graves 

Where Judah's sires sleep. 
We swear, who are living. 
To rest not in striving. 

To pause not to weep ; 
Let the trumpet be blown. 
Let the standard be flown. 

Now set we our watch. 
Our watchword, "The sword 
Of our land and our Lord — " 

In Jordan now^ set we our watch. 

Naphtali Herz Imber. 
(Translated by Israel Zangwill.) 

461 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Onward 

I 

YjT/HERE are you going, soldiers, 
^^ With banners and drawn sword? 
We're marching East to Palestine 

To battle for the Lord! 
What captain leads your bands 

Along the sandy coasts? 
The Mighty One of Israel, 

His name is Lord of Hosts! 
To Palestine, to Palestine, 

The Lord will lead us through — 
To blow before the heathen walls 

The trumpets of the Jew, 

II 

What flag is this you carry, 

In this your Holy War? 
The same our grandsires raised aloft, 

The same our fathers bore. 
On many a battlefield, intact. 

It caught the crimson rain, 
For what was woven in God's loom, 

No man can rend in twain. 
To Palestine, to Palestine 

The Lord will lead us through. 
To plant upon its mountain-heights 

The standard of the Jew. 

Ill 

What song is this you're singing? 

The same that Israel sang 
When Moses led the mighty choir, 

And Miriam's timbrel rang. 
"To Palestine, to Palestine!" 

Both young and old have cried; 
"To Palestine, to Palestine" — 

The people's voice replied. 

462 



NATIONAL 

To Palestine, to Palestine, 

The Lord will lead us through 

To thunder in the usurper's ear 
The anthem of the Jew. 

IV 

When Salem's foes are scattered 

And all the path lies free, 
What follows next in order? 

Our God to that will see. 
He'll break the tyrant's sceptre, 

He'll build the people's throne — 
When half the world is Freedom's, 

Then all the world's our own. 
To Palestine, to Palestine, 

The Lord will lead us through. 

J. M. Manicoff. 
On! 

"Vy/HEN Israel marched from Egypt land, 
^^ And broke her yoke of slavery, 
And standing by the Red Sea strand, 
Drank her first draught of Liberty, 
And torrid Afric's horrid hordes came on with new- 
linked chains, once more 
Her limbs to bind ; 
And trembling Israel cried to Heaven when she beheld 
the sea before. 

The foe behind; 
Then burst a voice from high; 
Why do the children cry — 
Why do the children cry to me? 
Why do they not go on? 

And Israel found her promised home — 

And lost it; and her Destiny 
Has forced her, ever since, to roam 

In search of it o'er land and sea. 

463 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And blood-soaked foot-prints mark her path, through 
briers, and beasts, and storms, and stress, 
— Her life one dirge; 
Yet some of Israel's sons, from out the black medi- 
aeval wilderness, 

Did at last emerge. 
And now, from a foreign strand. 
We long for our native land ; 
And again the command in our ears, as we stand: 
Why do they not go on! 

Yes! We are through — we favored few; 

And some of us would rest content, 
If only our poor brother Jew 

Would not scream so when being rent. 
We're tired of wandering through the world, but, 
brothers, we can have no rest 
Here on the strand ; 
Behind come foes more cruel far than the seas of hard- 
ship we must breast 

For our Fatherland. 
— Now, brothers, which is it to be: 
The foe, or the God-governed sea? 
Come, make your choice with me, for the sea! 
And let us on, on, on! George Benedict. 



To the Glory of Jerusalem 

DEAUTIFUL height! O joy! the whole world's 
'^ gladness! 

O great King's city, mountain blest! 
My soul is yearning unto thee — is yearning 

From limits of the west. 

The torrents heave from depths of mine heart's passion, 

At memory of thine olden state: 
The glory of thee which was born to exile. 

Thy dwelling desolate. 

464 



NATIONAL 

And who shall grant me but to rise and reach thee, 

Flying on eagle's pinions fleet, 
That I may shed upon thy dust, beloved, 

Tears, till thy dust grow sw^et? 

I seek thee, though thy King be no more in thee, 
Though where the balm hath been of old — 

Thy Gilead's balm — be poisonous adders lurking, 
Winged scorpions manifold. 

Is it not to thy stones I shall be tender? 

Shall I not kiss them verily? 
Shall not the earth taste on my lips be sweeter 

Than honey — the earth of thee? 

JUDAH Ha-LeVI. 

Jerusalem 

JERUS'LEM! Jerus'lem! thy glories have fled, 
Thy Kings wander crownless, pale ghosts of the 
past ; 
Thy beauty, thy valor, thy might, are all dead ; 
But Hope is still left thee — 'tis all that thou hast ! 

Though the sword of the warrior's tarnished with rust. 
And the war-steed lies bleeding along the red earth ; 

Though thy towxrs have crumbled long since into dust. 
And the songs of the Priests but in sorrow have 
birth ; 

Yet the Great God of Heaven will brighten the stain, 
And breathe in the w^ar-horse, strength, power, and 
might ; 

Thy ramparts. Oh Salem! shall tow^er again, 
And the Priests' Holy Temple arise in thy sight. 

Then, Queen of the East ! let thy tears cease to flow — 
Thy God liveth ever ; He is mighty to save ; 

The diadem ^^t shall encircle thy brow, 

When those who now rule, shall have passed in the 
grave. 

465 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

For the Future hath gladness for thee in its womb, 
And the harp will again sound thy triumph and 
praise ; 

Nor sorrow, nor blight, will e'er shadow with gloom. 
The Sun of thy Glory, the Light of thy Days. 

And nations will bow, as they did once before, 

And quake in thy presence with dread and alarm ; 
For strong are the people, who rest them secure 
In the Faith of His word, and the Might of His 
arm. 

P. C. L. 



Zion 

C\^ lovely dwellings fall the fervid rays, 

^-^ The naked rocks lift high their heads in air, 

Dust-covered stones fling back the noon-day's glare 
And strange old ruins tell of ancient days. 
A motley throng creeps through the narrow ways, 

Pilgrims from far off lands whose faces bear 

The look that tells of by-gone toil and care, 
Of weary journe)^s and of long delays. 
What magic is there in this torrid clime? 

What fascination in these hoary walls? 

What charm dwells here that sovereignly calls 
To hearts of men throughout the reach of time. 

Heedless of earthly gain, yet draws the soul 

Through want and hardship, to what mighty goal? 

This was the ancient home of Israel; 

Here lived our fathers fearless and free; 

Here lives a glory and a memory; 
And we His chosen ones, once more shall dwell, 
Majestic, jubilant, invincible. 

In this, our heritage; our eyes shall see 

The long-ago that is again to be; 
The peace that has no ending shall dispel 

466 



NATIONAL 

The dreaming and the doubt, the hopes, the fears. 

With love and longing we await that day 
Whose dawn beholds the j^earning of the years 

Fulfilled at last, and, while we waiting, pray, 
A newer life in Mount Moriah wakes. 
All over Olivet the morning breaks. 

Louis Federleicht. 



A Song of Zion 

I 

JERUSALEM, my boast and pride, 
My heart, it yearns for thee, 
The land where peace and joy abide. 
Thy shores when shall I see? 

II 

perfect, pure and pleasant soil. 
Far-famed as Israel's race, 

1 love thy fields, thy fruits, thy toil, 
Thy trees of stately grace. 

Ill 

'Neath thy blue skies no mist is seen, 
No drear nor darksome night; 

Thy very hills of splend'rous sheen, 
For God has made thee right. 

IV 

Of precious stones thy walls are made, 
Thy ramparts, jew^els rare. 

Thy gates of oriental jade, 
That spread a radiant glare. 

467 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

V 

Of ivory hue thy homes are built, 

Thy windows, crystal clear; 
And every soul is free from guilt, 

For God hath sent His cheer. 

VI 

Jerusalem ! my people's home, 

Would God, I were in thee; 
No more the Exile's aimless roam, 

My paradise across the sea. 

VII 

Where shepherds and their flocks abound, 

Where birds prolong their lay, 
Where flowers bloom the whole year round, 

And all the earth seems gay. 

VIII 

Thy mountains stand, as heroes bold, 

Thy rivers softly pass; 
Thy pastures oft in psalms extolled, 

Of nectar, breathes thy grass. 

IX 

No thing that Is not passing clean 

Can come within thy gates; 
On every side a smile is seen, 

And joy e'en permeates. 

X 

There hate and envy cannot dwell. 

There lucre holds no sway, 
There malice died, and Sh'kina's spell. 

Makes heavy hearts feel gay. 

468 



NATIONAL 



XI 



Rememb'rest thou the ancient days, 
When prophets crowned thy streets, 

When Levites with their chants of praise 
Recalled thy wond'rous feats? 

XII 

In foreign lands thy sons abide, 

We see thee but in dreams ; 
We sob, we sigh, our tears are dried 

And Hope, it becks and beams. 

XIII 

"Another year," we softly pray 

"O, Lord," Thy children cry; 
**0, take us back to Yesterday, 

To Israel's cherished destiny." 

XIV 

Each day we pray, in accents low 

Would God I were with thee; 
Our Faith is strong, our hopes they grow 

Our Fatherland to see. 

Walter Vernon-Epstein. 



The Shoshanah 

I 

A LILY lies broken and bare on a highway — 
**• Broken and bare and maimed; 
And people from many a neighboring byway 

Carelessly pass her, shamed. 
Come carelessly passing her, lying there broken, 

Lying mud-spattered and torn; 
Of once glorious beauty now scarcely a token, 

She seems man and God-forlorn. 

469 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

In hope, though desponding, 

She lies unresponding 
To insults, to jibes, and to jeers; 

Herself bruised and battered, 

Her children wind-scattered — 
A mother bemoaning in tears, 

II 

Lightly the all-crushing Time-wheel rolls o'er her, 

Leans lightly, and then rolls on; 
Softly the all-burning sunbeams do lower 

Their fiercest rays for her, so wan; 
Time lends his all-sheltering hand to her — bleeding — 

And soon does the sun heal each cut. 
But men — Ah ! the passing men — push her unheeding, 
From out of the refuge rut, 

"What dost thou, poor lily. 
On highways so hilly, 
So far from the land of thy birth? 
Thy hopes lead thee whither? 
How camest thou hither — 
This hard-hearted, rock-bestrewn earth?" 

Ill 

"I once was the fairest and happiest flower. 

Proudest and haughtiest dame; 
By the King's own hands tended, in his royal bower — 

The Lily of Sharon, my name. 
But the weeds they rose up in their envy to choke me, 

And brought me very low; 
And cast on this highway, the passersby broke me, 
And filled my cup with woe. 
My house, it is Zion; 
My hope, Judah's Lion; 
For a while he has left me in pain, 
Not for e'er to debase me. 
But soon to replace me 
In Zion to flourish again." 

George E. Chodowsky. 

470 



NATIONAL 

The Return 

The People 

"VY/IDE open, ye doors, and raise up high, O gate, 
^^ We are coming again, who have waited so long — 

With shouts and rejoicing, with music and song; 
Then haste ye, companions, nor linger nor wait. 

ZiON 

O not as a beggar that seeketh for alms, 
As conquering host ye are coming to me. 
From valley and mountain, from land and from sea 

With thunder of trumpets and waving of palms. 

The People 

Our flag shall be planted on ZIon's fair side, 

We shall rest in its shade, who have wandered so 

long, 
Our tears turned to laughter, our sighs into song. 
Rejoicing as Bridegroom that greeteth his Bride. 

R. E. I. 

On to the Promised Land 

I 
A DAWNING sun breaks through the sable cloud! 
^~^ Oh, see the East ablaze In crimson hue! 
There peals a mighty blast triumphant, loud, 
A call to rouse the ever-striving Jew! 

Chorus 
Arise my people grand In story, 
Thy little ones and patriarchs hoary, 
Illumined by thy pristine glory. 

And form one mighty band ! 
And let thy shout ascend to heaven. 
For lo! the clouds thy dawn hast riven. 
Behold fulfilled the promise given. 

On to the promised land! 

471 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

II 

Now beam the rosy rays throughout the lands, 
And eyes with sorrow dim light up anew! 

In every clime the call is joining bands 
Who swing aloft the standard of the Jew! 

Ill 

Oh! let the mountain land beloved of God, 

Where heroes bled and prophets falsehood slew! 

No longer mourning-wrapt, the sacred sod 

Blooms forth to greet the home-returning Jew! 

IV 

The torrent sweeps and melts the crags away, 
A nation's cherished dream at last comes true! 

For now indeed has come the promised day 
Of freedom for the never-conquered Jew! 

RuFUS Learsi. 
To Zion 

r\ PEOPLE long oppressed and stricken sore, 
^^^ Condemned as wanderers on the earth to mourn 
Across the age-long darkness of thy fate. 

There breaks at length the radiance of the dawn. 
Behold a land, thy birthright and thy home. 

On thee by Heaven bestowed, by Heaven with- 
drawn. 
Yet promised to thy seed forevermore ; 

Yea, He, the Mighty One, Himself hath sworn. 
Behold its plains unsown, its rock-strewn slopes, 

Whereon no more the vine and almond grows. 

Those barren hills again shall cedars crown, 
The land for thee shall blossom as the rose. 

Return to thy rest, at last return ; 

Cry to the South "Give back! Give back O 
North!" 

472 



NATIONAL ' 

Those mountains summon and those valleys cry, 
By twos and threes, by tens, in troops go forth 

Though yet afar the Peace of Zion waits, 

Perchance through flames and blood thy pathway 
lies. 

Fear not — Be strong — Thy heritage regain 

O Judah, tarry not! Israel arise. ]\/[, g, g, 

Zionism 

T AM come with the dawn on the swift wings of lights 

Through the gloom of long ages of strife, 
And will bear you away from these regions of night 

Far from the dull-plodding toil to new life. 
Yet I come not in rage and my nets are not spread 

Nor come I to inspire you to wrath. 
But I come with the dawn — and by it you'll be led 

From the land of the shadow of death. 

Lo! I find you in bondage, in hunger, and sorrow, 

Bending low 'neath the chains of the slave; 
But with life in its wake will I bring you the morrow — 

To a life yond the gloom of this grave ! 
And filled with the spirit of joy I shall lead you 

To the land where you'll breathe freedom's breath ; 
From the scorn of your brothers to joy I will speed you 

From the land of the shadow of death ! 

Samuel Roth. 

Wandering 

LITTLE man of sorrows, whither would you wan- 
der? 
Whither from this sunny isle with step so firm and 
bold? 
"I am going to the City to hear the Word of God, 
My glory is to tread the soil on which my Fathers 
trod; 
I am going to the City to hear the Word of God." 

473 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE i 

Little man of sorrows, whither would you wander? 
Is thy quest a fairer heaven or a flower of brighter 
hue? 
"I am going to the City wherein my people strive, ^ 
To share their wounds and slay their foes, encourage % 
and revive; 
I am going to the City wherein my people strive." 

Little man of sorrows, whither would you wander. 
When the Sun Is In thy zenith here, and Hope so 
golden too? 
"I am going to the City to share my People's pain, 
To prove with deeds of daring that their struggle is 
not vain ; 
I am going to the City to share my People's pain." 

Little man of sorrows, whither would you wander? 
Whither from this sunny isle with step so firm and 
bold? 
"I am going to the country where my Fathers ruled 

of old, 
My quest is not a fairer sky, nor a sun of white and 
gold; 
I am going to the country where my Fathers ruled of 
old." 

Samuel Roth. 



The Promised Land 

C\ LITTLE Land of lapping seas, 
^^ Of vineyards, vales and hills; 

Of tender rains and rainbow plains, 

Of deserts and of rills; 
O little Land of mounting crags, 

Of lonely height and deep; 
A world away thy children stray 

And long and wait and weep. 

474 



NATIONAL 



Refrain 



From Eg\'pt's flesh-pots, Lord of wrath, 

With mighty outstretched hand, 
Through seas and mountains cleave our path; 

Oh ! Lord, redeem our land ! 

I know the golden' oranges 

Englobed beneath the moon, 
The sky that spills 'twixt seas and hills 

Its shining draught of noon ; 
The vines that bind our holy hills 

With grapes like jew^els set; 
The silver green of olive sheen 

Oh, can my soul forget? 

O little Land of holy men 

Of fearless dream and deed ; 
From clime to clime the storms of time 

Have strewn thy hardy seed, 
And fearless still and holy still, 

We sang through hate and shame; 
With faith we fought, with deed and thought 

And God's enduring name. 

My heart is singing like a bird 

Of home that still may be. 
And joys I dared to leave, and spared, 

Hold out their arms to me. 
We cannot sleep in cushioned ease 

Nor yield to martial will. 
But we must hear God's trumpet clear 

Sound peace upon His Hill. 

Jessie E. Sampter. 



475 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Jerusalem 

I 

TTHE ancient of cities! — the lady of nations! 
"■■ The home where the cherubims hovered In light! 
Where the breeze has a voice like those old "lamenta- 
tions" 
That saddened thy day w^Ith their omens of night, 
And the river's low song seems to echo the strain 
Which the prophet poured out to thy spirit — in vain ! 

II 

Bright land of the promise ! — whose vision of glory 
Had dazzled thy sense, till 't was feeble to see! 

O, chosen for others to keep the high story 

Whose record was vain for thy children and thee! 

Lone Esau of nations, that weepest aKvay, 

While the gentile is rich In thy birthright today! 

HI 

Lost land of the minstrel ! — whose harp, in its sadness, 
Brought music from heaven, to play to thy heart, — 

Whose spell of a moment came down on thy madness, 
And bade, for an hour, thy dark angel depart, — 

Till the power of Its w^arning expired with Its strain, 

And the spirit of evil came o'er thee again! 

IV 

And O, for the outcast w^ho drank of thy glory, — 
The lost one of Judah, — the chosen of yore, — 

The priest of thy temple, — the heir of thy story, — 
Who dwelt in thy vineyards, that blossom no more ! 

Afar, 'mid the heathen, he sitteth forlorn, — 

And thy fruit is the bramble, thy greenness the thorn 1 

V 

It was not for Edom that Zion was braided 

With crowns of the sunshine and garlands of bloom. 
Where the wild Arab wanders the cedar hath faded, 

476 



NATIONAL 

The bird of the wild keepeth watch on the tomb ; — 
And the soil of the simoon awaits the far day, 
When the rain shall return to the wilderness gray. 

VI 

Pale daughter of Zion ! — all wasted with weeping, 
Thy footstool the desert, — its dust on thy head ; 

Thy long weary watch o'er the wilderness keeping, 
And sitting in darkness, like them that be dead ; — • 

A veil like the widow's hath shadowed thy pride, 

And a sorrow is thine like no sorrow beside ! 

VII 

And sadly thy son by each far-foreign river 

Sits, as he sat in the Babel of old, — 
Lone 'mid the nations, — all homeless forever, 

'Mid homes full of children, — and poor 'mid his 
gold;— 
With a mark on his brow of the brand in his brain, 
Like the record God wrote on the forehead of Cain! 

VIII 

Weary with wandering and wasted with sadness. 
And walking by lights that are all from the past, — 

Wishes, scarce hopes, waken smiles without gladness, 
As backward his thoughts, like the mourner's, are 
cast ; 

For the tale of the Hebrew who wanders alway 

Is the fable and type of his people today! 

IX 

A proverb to most, and a moral to all. 

And a lamp unto others, though sitting in gloom, — 
He seems like a mute in a festival hall. 

And is still looking forward for that which hath 
come ; — 
Like the children of Eblis, he hideth his smart, 
And walks through the world with his hand on his 
heart ! 

477 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

X 

All lands are as Moab — all countries are Edom, 
To the Hebrew, who sits in his sackcloth of sin,— 

Till the trumpets of God calling others to freedom, 
The Jews to that banner at length shall come in ; — 

And Salem must sit in her desert alone, 

Till the seed of the Lord by all rivers be sown. 

XI 

Then, daughter of Judah ! look up from thy slumber ! 

And lo! a bright vision of turrets and spires! 
A hymn o'er the desert, from harps without number ! 

Thy children at rest by the shrine of their sires! 
The song-bird on Carmel, — the rose in the plain, — 
And the streams flowing backward to Zion again! 

John Kebble Hervey. 

The Wailing Place in Jerusalem 

"Vjr/ITH heads bowed down, they stand with stream- 
^^ ing eyes. 

Before the ruined wall, whose grimy stones 
Are crumbling with the weight of centuries, 

And read their Mincha-prayer in mournful tones 

That spring from hearts that grieve for Judah's fate, 
For Jacob's seed whose loving memories dwell 

On splendors past, and, kneeling, supplicate 
That mercy may be shown to Israel. 

Their garb proclaims them men of many lands. 

Those dwell amid the northern snows, and these 
Have wandered far from Yemen's burning sands, 

Or sought their way across the western seas. 

Not here alone do wailing figures stand ! 

Not here alone do tears of sorrow flow! 
In every clime they beat, with clenched hand, 

Against the stones of Israel's wall of woe. 

478 



NATIONAL 

In every land there rises, stern and great, 

This self-same wail of torment and of fears, 

Its courses laid with stones of scorn and hate, 
And bonded with cement of blood and tears. 

But Judah should behold that brighter day. 

For which these kneeling pilgrims humbly plead. 

And like a star, on Zion's bosom lay 
Her beautiful and shining golden head. 

Her tattered robes shall turn to silken sheen, 
Her shackles shall give way to golden chains, 

As from her temple-heights she views, serene, 
The flowers of peace that bloom in her domains. 

Where Hermon's snows shine down on Lebanon, 
Where Judah breaks the Dead Sea's sullen peace, 

Where rise the ruined towers of Ascalon, 

Or Carmel's vines look on the midland seas. - 

Louis Federleicht. 



Lament of the Daughters of Zion 

A WAY from our land, 
^^ Away from our home, 
A sad captive band, 

'Mong strangers we roam. 

Away from our hills, 

We are sundered apart, 
And the clear crystal rills 

Enshrined in our heart. 

And Lebanon's palm trees 

'Neath the purple domed skies. 

And the sweet scented breeze 
That wafted our sighs! 

479 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Away from the dew 

On the hill terraced lines, 
Where the pale olive grew 

And the purple clad vines. 

For past is that grandeur, 

The glory and fame ; 
And faded the splendour 

Of Judah's great name. 

Dark was the hour, 

And fierce was the blow, 
That shattered our power 

In a whirlwind of woe. 

The days that are born 

In sorrow, we pine; 
In sadness we mourn, 

For Salem's fair shrine. 

But the Lord will again 

Gather us round ; 
And Judah will reign 

With vict'ry crowned. 

On the wings of the breeze. 

O'er mountain and mead. 
Far o'er the seas 

The tidings will speed. 

And from the ends of the world 

The lowly and proud, 
With their banners unfurled. 

The nations will crowd. 

In Glory revealed 

This song they'll raise; 
The Lord is our shield. 

The Lord Is our Praise. J, jr. 

480 



NATIONAL 
Longing for Jerusalem 

/^ CITY of the world, with sacred splendor blest, 
^^^ My spirit yearns to thee from out the far-off 
West, 

A stream of love wells forth when I recall thy day, 
Now is thy temple waste, thy glory passed away. 
Had I an eagle's wings, straight would I fly to thee, 
Moisten thy holy dust with wet cheeks streaming free. 
Oh, how I long for thee! albeit thy King has gone. 
Albeit where balm once flowed, the serpent dwells 

alone. 
Could I but kiss thy dust, so would I fain expire, 
As sweet as honey then, my passion, my desire! 

JUDAH Ha-LeVI. 

(Translated by Emma Lazarus.) 



Awakening 

Vy/HERE wait the soldiers of the Lord 
"" That smote in olden days? 
Where stands in song his shining horde 

That chant and shout his praise? 
They long are laid with flame and sword, 

Their corpses strew the ways. 

A hundred gods of brass and gold 

Sit high with icy hands. 
And those that praised his name of old 

Lie slain in many lands! 
Their bones arise and join : Behold, 

The host of Israel stands! 

Does Israel's heart such silence keep, 

It seems a stony crust, 
And covered with the dust? 

No, 'tis a dragon fast asleep, 
An ancient sword to flash and leap 

From scabbard's rust ! Jessie E. Sampter. 

481 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Daughter of Zion 

r^AUGHTER of Zion ! Awake from thy sadness: 

Awake, for thy foes shall oppress thee no more ; 
Bright o'er thy hills dawns the day-star of gladness, 

Arise ! for the night of thy sorrow is o'er. 
Strong were thy foes, but the arm that subdued them 

And scattered their legions was mightier far. 
They fled, like the chafE from the scourge that pur- 
sued them; 
For vain were their steed and their chariots of war! 

Daughter of Zion that Power that hath saved thee, 
Extolled with the harp and the timbrel should be; 
Shout! for the foe is destroyed that enslaved thee. 
The oppressor is vanquished and Zion is free! 

Anonymous. 



But Who Shall See? 

DUT who shall see the glorious day 
When, throned on Zion's brow. 
The Lord shall rend that veil away 

Which hides the nations now? 
When earth no more beneath the fear 

Of His rebuke shall lie; 
When pain shall cease, and every tear 

Be wiped from every eye. 

Then, Judah, thou no more shalt mourn 

Beneath the heathen's chain; 
Thy days of splendour shall return. 

And all be new again. 
The Fount of Life shall then be quaffed 

In peace by all who come! 
And every wind that blows shall waft 

Some long-lost exile home! 

Thomas Moore. 

482 



NATIONAL 

The Latter Day 

I—IAIL, to the brightness of Zion's glad morn- 
^ ^ ing: 

Joy to the lands that in darkness have lain ; 
Hushed to the accents of sorrow and mourning; 

Zion in triumph begins her mild reign ! 

Hail to the brightness of Zion's glad morning, 
Long by the prophets of Israel foretold ; 

Hail to the millions from bondage returning; 
Gentiles and Jews the blest vision behold ! 

Lo, in the desert rich flowers are springing; 

Streams ever copious are gliding along! 
Loud from the mountain-tops echoes are ringing; 

Wastes rise in verdure, and mingle in song. 

See, from all lands, from the isles of the ocean. 
Praise to Jehovah ascending on high ; 

Fallen are the engines of war and commotion; 
Shouts of salvation are rending the sky! 

Thomas Hastings. 



''And Zion Be the Glory Yef 

r\ TRIBE of ancestry, be dumb, thy parchment roll 
^^^ review ! 

What is thy line of ancestors to that w^hich boasts the 

Jew? 
The ancient Briton, where is he? The Saxons, who 

are they ? 
The Roman is a fleeting rhade — a thing of yesterday. 
But he may boldly lift his eyes and spread his hands 

abroad, 
And sav, "Four thousand years ago my sires on Canaan 

stood." 

483 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

O, who shall dare despise the Jew, whom God hath 

not despised, 
Nor yet forsaken in His wrath, though long and sore 

chastised ? 
From many a distant land the Lord shall bring His 

people forth. 
And Zion be the glory yet and wonder of the earth. 

Anonymous. 



The Harp of Zion 

'T'HE harp of Zion sleepeth 
•*■ In the shadow of the hill; 

The child of promise weepeth 

His weary exile still; 
The ages of his sorrow 

Flow on like Jordan's stream; 
He looketh for the morrow, 

But cannot see its beam. 

No beam of heaven discloseth 

His father's land of birth; 
His footstep ne'er reposeth 

In the nations of the earth; 
To them he blindly holdeth 

The lamp he cannot see ; 
While darkness deep enfoldeth 

The homes of Galilee ! 

Yet not, O God, for ever 

Thou'lt judge him in thy wrath; 
But bid the darkness sever 

Above his destined path; 
In thy dread book is written 

The period of his doom ; 
And the vale thy curse has smitten, 

As a garden yet shall bloom. 

484 



NATIONAL 

Even now the destined ages 

Are closing o'er the land; 
And every sign presages 

The morn again at hand ; 
The darkness swiftly weareth, 

Light trembles from the shore; 
Each wind of heaven prepareth 

The wanderer to restore! 

James Willis. 



The Restoration of Israel 

[DAUGHTER of Zion, from the dust, 

Exalt thy fallen head ; 
Again in thy Redeemer trust, 
He calls thee from the dead. 

Awake, awake, put on thy strength, 

Thy beautiful array; 
The day of freedom dawns at length, 

The Lord's appointed day. 

Rebuild thy walls, thy bounds enlarge 

And send thy heralds forth ; 
Say to the South, — ''Give up thy charge, 

And keep not back, O North!" 

They come, they come; — thine exiled bands, 

Where'er they rest or roam, 
Have heard thy voice in distant lands, 

And hasten to their home. 

Thus, though the universe shall burn, 

And God his works destroy, 
With songs the ransomed shall return, 

And everlasting joy. 

James Montgomery. 



485 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Israel's God 

"^O longer the children of ZIon need weep; 

* From Judea's fair mountains, from over the deep, 

From hill top and valley the paeans are sung 

In every known language, our own holy tongue; 

Our cause is triumphant, our freedom is won, 

"The God of our People, Our Lord, He is One." 

United the sound of Israel's great host, 
Descendants of Judah now their proud boast ; 
Ascending each hour in psalm and in praise, 
Their voices together in harmony raise. 
The cry of our faith from out the dim past, 
From ages unknown, till mortal shall last, 
From birth, until Death says our course has been run, 
We continue to sing "Our God He is One." 

Oh! land of our fathers, in God's chosen time, 
May we speedily pray at thy sacred shrine, 
And upward to Heav'n, as on wings of a dove, 
Our reliance on Thee, Thy care, and Thy love. 
To gather Thy children, as sheep in a fold, 
To worship together in praise, as of old ; 
"Hear, O Israel," we'll sing then, as one mighty word. 
"He Is One, Is our God; He is One, is our Lord." 

Lawrence Cohen. 



He Watcheth Over Israel 

'T'HOUGH our harps hang on the willows, 
'- Near to Babylon's turgid stream; 
Though our ancient glory mock us. 

Like a half-remembered dream ; 
Still His word runs with the ages — 

Still His Covenant He keeps — 
Yea, He watcheth over Israel 

And He slumbers not, nor sleeps. 

486 



NATIONAL 

Though we dwell in alien countries, 

Bound by, yet without, their law; 
Though they spoil us, in their despite 

Of the source from whence we draw 
That which ever cleaves us from them; 

He will heed when Jacob weeps — 
Yea, he watcheth over Israel 

And He slumbers not, nor sleeps. 

Though our sword arm be sore stricken. 
Although mute be David's lyre; 

Though our lips be locked and silent — ' 
Lips once touched by living fire — 

Still, the Temple Lamps are burning 
In His own mysterious deeps — 

Yea, he watcheth over Israel 
And He slumbers not, nor sleeps. 

Yea, His word is constant, constant, 

As the singing of the sea; 
And the High Priest of the nations 

Yet shall stand unshackled, free! 
And the First-born of the Promise 

Sow no more where despite reaps — 
Yea, He watcheth over Israel 

And He slumbers not, nor sleeps. 

Solomon L. Long. 

'Tis to the East 

'"nriS to the East the Hebrew bends 
■■■ When morn unveils its brow; 

And while the dawning light ascends 

The East receives his vow. 
And Hope still wings his thoughts afar, 

It tells to those that roam, 
That He who rode the cloudy car 
Will guide His people home. 

• Anonymous. 

487 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Ee-Chovoud 

LJOW long, O Lord! how long, 

'*' ^ Lonely and sad 'mid the world's great throng, 

Shall we of the waters of bitterness drink? 

Our cup is filled with gall to the brink; 

Our shoulders are bent and our foreheads bowed, 

Ine covoud lonoo, ee-chovoud. 

Ee-chovoud, Lord, ee-chovoud! 
Thy beautiful world is to us as a shroud; 
For our feet no earth, for our breath no air, 
Wrong and contumely our daily fare. 
Thou Raiser of lowly, Righter of wrong, 
How long, O Lord, oh! how long? 

How long? Lord, how long 

Shall the weak lie under the wheel of the strong? 

God of justice, and love and grace 

Find for Thy homeless a resting-place. 

Black waters surround us, our sky is in cloud, 

Ine covoud lonoo, ee-chovoud. 

Ee-chovoud, Father, ee-chovoud ! 

In that word all our wrongs and our sufferings crowd, 
Thou hast promised the clouds shall rend and lift. 
Make, God of the mighty and helpless, a rift! 
Keep our souls from fainting, our faith hold strong, 
For 'tis long, O Father; oh, how long! 

S. R. HiRSCH. 



The Dawn of Hope 

CEE how the people of Israel come trooping, 
^ Waving like victors their banners on high ; 
Joy has uplifted the hearts that were drooping, 
Promise enkindled the light in the eye. 

488 



NATIONAL 

Waking at length from the slumbers of ages, 

Eager they turn to welcome the light, 
Making the dreams of their poets and sages 

Gloriously true with their zeal and their might.- 

Straight grow the backs that with stooping were dou- 
bled. 

Noble and straight as the cedar and pine ; 
Cleared are the brows which affliction sore troubled, 

Glad as the viners, who taste the new wine. 

Hope has welled up in their hearts like a fountain, 
Bursting with power its way to the sun; 

Freedom has come like bright dawn on the mountain, 
Flushed with the glow of its triumphs begun. 

David, behold, to thy stronghold on Zion, 

Speed they like runners who make for their goal, 

Bearing the flag of the Judean lion. 
Bearing a spirit as bold in the soul. 

As to thy temple, O Israel, returning, 

Leave they the shores which as aliens they trod. 

Ecstasy thrills them, all eager, all burning. 

Filled with the love of their land and their God. 

Give to thy people the shield of salvation. 

Favor, O Lord, thy anointed of old; 
Bring them together once more as a nation. 

Gather again in thy sheltering fold. 

C. Pessels. 

The Jews Weeping in Jerusalem 

\Jf7HY, trembling and sad, dost thou stand there 
'* and mourn. 

Son of Israel, the days that can never return? 
And why do those tear-drops of misery fall 
On the mouldering ruin, the perishing wall? 

489 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Was yon city, in robes of the heathen now clad, 
Once the flourishing Zion, where Judah was glad? 
And those walls, that disjointed and scattered now lie, 
Were they once vowed to Heaven and hallowed on 
high? 

Yet why dost thou mourn? Oh, to gladness awaken! 
Though Jehovah this city of God has forsaken, 
He preserves for His people a city more fair, 
Which a ruthless invader no longer shall share. 

No longer the tear for your city shall flow; 
No longer thy bosom the sad sigh bestow; 
But night shall be followed by glorious da)% 
And sorrow and sighing shall vanish away. 

James Wallis Eastburn. 

Dying in Jerusalem 

JERUSALEM! Jerusalem! 
Thou city of the blest, 
I come, beneath thy hallowed soil 
To lay my bones to rest. 

It is not mine to see thee rise 

In glory from the dust; 
But God, the God of Abraham, 

Is kind as well as just. 
And, happy but to die in thee, 

I hail the sacred ground 
Where rest from all their wanderings 

The sons of Jacob found. 

Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! 

Thy towers shall rise again 
When comes the Lord's anointed One 

In majesty to reign. 
My sun will shortly set, but thou 

In glory shall appear; 

490 



NATIONAL 

Thy King, The God of all the earth; 

Thy name, "The Lord is here." 
And Gentiles who have spurned thee long 

Shall make the glory known; 
While all conspire to honor thee, 

My father's land! my own! 

Thomas Ragg. 



When I Think of Thee, O Zion 

'W/'HEN I think of thee, O Zion, 
^^ Glory of the Holy Land, 
Recollecting thee as city, 

Chartered by Jehovah's hand ; 
Thy gates of pearl, thy walls of gold, 
By sage and prophet long foretold, 
I do wonder — I know not why 
How camest thou so low to lie? 

When I think of thee, O Zion, 

Of thy renown, of thy great fame; 
When my lips the word doth whisper 

Mentioning thy Holy Name, 
Name pronounced by many a tongue 
In reverent accents often sung; 
Name so cherished, tell me why 
Recalling thee, my heart doth sigh. 

"What If strangers do me honor. 
Carry my banner and call me free; 

What if Gentiles 'Allelujah,' 

'Amen' shout and swear by me? 

When those children I call mine 

List not, and 'bide across the line? 

This the reason I bitterly cry." 

Thus sadly Zion doth reply. 

491 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

"Can a mother forget her own, 

Her only son, her bosom child? 
Will other children satisfy 

The craving for the first that smiled? 
Will ever multitude replace 
The laugh that lit the cradled face? 
Never, never will Zion rest 
Until her own are in her nest." 

John D. Nussbaum. 

Redemption 

A WAKE, oh Israel! and hear 
^~^ That thy Redemption draweth near; 
Arise ye mourners! God hath sent 
Fulfilment of His covenant! 

It cometh not by war's decrees 
And blood of martyrs broad as seas ; 
The deeper purposes of God 
We learn in kindness, not by rod. 

Within yourself, O Israel ! 
Deliverance cometh — heed this wail I 
Then cease thy groans ; Be men I Be men ! 
And God will send Redemption then. 

WTiat slave was freed, who loved his yoke? 
Thou canst not rise with spirits broke. 
God's beloved art thou still, 
O Israel, obey his will. 

And even now His chosen seed 
Shall reap those blessings long decreed. 
Be worthy then — your God shall see 
And His Redemption send to thee. 

Honor the God thy fathers loved 

And love the God thy fathers praised ; 

Then Israel, thou'lt rise again 

A people honored by all men. Anonymous. 

492 



NATIONAL 

Good Tidings to Zion 

(Isa. lii. 7) 

/^N the mountain's top appearing, 
^^ Lo, the sacred herald stands, 
Welcome news to Zion bearing, 

Zion long in hostile lands: 
Mourning captive, 

God himself will loose thy bands. 

Has thy night been long and mournful? 

Have thy friends unfaithful proved? 
Have thy foes been proud and scornful, 

By thy sighs and tears unmoved? 
Cease thy mourning; 

Zion still is well beloved. 

God, thy God, will now restore thee; 

He himself appears thy Friend ; 
All thy foes shall flee before thee ; 

Here their boasts and triumphs end: 
Great deliverance 

Zion's King vouchsafes to send. 

Enemies no more shall trouble; 

All thy WTongs shall be redressed ; 
For thy shame thou shalt have double, 

In thy Maker's favor blest; 
All thy conflicts 

End in everlasting rest. 

Thomas Kelly. 



A Cry for Zion 

'*DEHOLD, as I sit here, alone and forlorn, 

Very often I wnsh I had never been born, 
For of all of my travail, my sorrow and pain. 
Oh, can ye, O nations, discover my gain ? 



493 

I 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Ye tread on my beard and ye spit in my face, 
And ye clothe me in chains and the badge of disgrace. 
And ye come and advise me to lose myself quite, 
And assimilate with the dark shadows of night. 
As well to exhort the Gulf Stream to be mixed 
With the cold, icy ocean wherein it is fixed ; 
Or advise in the heavens the great Milky Way 
To be lost in the stars that most everywhere lay. 

"Oh, no! If true justice still lingers on earth 

You will give me the home that was mine from my 

birth. 
'Return me the land where I battled and fought. 
The land every inch of which dearly I bought, 
Very dearly I bought with the blood of my veins, 
Where I struggled for freedom and shatter'd my 

chains ; 
Where I strove with and conquer'd wild races of men, 
Gog-Magog, the giants, I drove from their den ; 
Where I worshipped my God and expounded His law, 
And where first the great light of His Wisdom I 

saw. 

"In that land were my fathers for ages interred, 
And the prophets and sages who lived by the Word, 
There the graves of my martyrs abound on the plains. 
And the roads are yet strewn with my children's 

remains! 
Every stone in that land is a tear from my eye. 
In its mountains still lingers the breath of my sigh. 
In its forests my wailing can yet be discerned, — 
Lives a soul who would say thus: 'I am not con- 
cerned ?' 
Then return me my country! If justice yet dwell 
Here on earth, O return me, return my Beth-el!" 

L. Smirnow. 



494 



NATIONAL 
A Song of Zion 

{Dedicated to the Zionist Society of Montreal) 

VY7E are coming, coming, coming. Fling our banner 
^^ to the breeze. 

In thousands we are coming from beyond remotest 

seas. 
We are coming after centuries of sorrow and of toil, 
To make our home in Palestine and tread its holy soil. 

O, let the song of gladness rise; let all the nations 

hear 
The anthem of a mighty host of Zion drawing near, 
Across the mountains, through the vales, and o'er the 

ocean's foam. 
Behold the hosts of Israel are coming, coming home! 

'Twas said of old by one whose lips were touched by 
Heaven's fire. 

That God's own house would be built up, than hills 
and mountains higher; 

That from its portals would go forth to all the world 
the word, 

That may we learn His waj'S, and walk in truth be- 
fore the Lord; 

That Sword and Spear would broken be, and turned 

to arts of peace ; 
That all the panoply of war and strife forever cease; 
That nation shall not lift up sword against nation, as 

of yore. 
But listen to the voice of God and learn of war no 

more. 

O, Children of the Covenant, perhaps the day is 

near, — 
E'en now, if you will listen, jou may hear the accents 

clear 

495 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Of One who calls the scattered brood — come to Me! 

children, Come! 
My hills are vacant. Here I am. I bid*you welcome 

home! 

Then answer — we are coming! Fling our banner to 

the breeze! 
In thousands we are coming from beyond remotest 

seas. 
We are coming after centuries of sorrow and of toil 
To make our home in Palestine and tread its holy 

soil. 

O, let the songs of gladness rise, let all the nations 

hear 
The anthem of the mighty host of Israel drawing near ; 
Across the mountains, through the vales, and o'er the 

ocean's foam, 
Behold the hosts of Israel are coming, coming home! 

Carroll Ryan. 

Zionism 

Q Star of Hope! O Blessed Star! 
^^^ That riseth in the East afar, 

Thou shed'st a wondrous, holy light, 
A pillar of fire art thou by night. 

Shine forth, thou great and lovely Star! 
That riseth in the East afar, 
A beacon-light of faith and cheer, 
Be thou to Israel far and near. 

Miriam Blaustein. 

Zionism 

'T'HE story that Herzl told was true — 

Too bitter true for tears; 
The blood-marked trail of the homeless Jew 
Winds back two thousand years. 

496 



' NATIONAL 

Walled out by hate from the Gentile's heart, 

And lashed by senseless lies, 
The Jew has walked in the nigh-apart, 

And shunned his brother's eyes. 

But now — at last — he stands erect, 

Nor fears to be alone; 
No Czar — no king — no church — no sect, 

Can keep him from his own. 

His flag shall fly where his fathers fought — 

In the homeland of the Jew; 
One race! One flag! One nation! Why not? 

For the dream of the strong comes true. 

Herbert N. Carson. 



Rallying Song 

jWTY people, my people! Arise, ID^bleeding East, 
^'**' Arise in the Westlands, you fools that blindly 

feast ! 
The nations call again 
For faith, for deeds, for men, 
Yet we that rise 
When Israel cries 
Are less than one in ten. 

My brothers, my brothers! O wand'ring aimless 

horde, 
A clarion from Zion is speaking for the Lord! 
The thund'ring heavens command: 
"Arise a mighty band ; 
With heart and voice 
Make now the choice, 
And straightly seek your land." 

My heroes, my heroes, whose hearts and lives are free, 
Arise and be counted that all the w^orld may see! 
Those ancient fields reclaim 
Whence Israel's splendor came, 

497 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And win and hold 

Our land of old 

To consecrate her name. 

Jessie E. Sampter. 

In the Land of Our Fathers 

DLUE are the skies in the land of our fathers — 

A blue of the beauteous sheen; 
Through the clear of the air on the farthest horizon 
The mountains of Judah are seen. 

Broad are the dales in the land of our fathers, 

Sweet with the fragrance of flowers; 
Fair-smelling groves where the almond-trees mur- 
mur — 

Vistas of grape-girded bowers. 

High are the hills in the land of our fathers 

To reach to the vaulting sky; 
Israelites, sturdily tilling and reaping, 

Are chanting their carols nearby. 

Bright gleams the moon in the land of our fathers, 

Aglint on the evening-dew, — 
Through myriad stars the queen of the even 

Sails on the sea of blue. 

Fair are the babes in the land of our fathers, 

Comely and gladsome and gay; — 
Godly the words of the songs they are singing — 

Sailing the ocean of blue. K. L. Sillman. 



On to the East 

VOUR loins let girt be, 
•*• Your staff in hand hold ; 
Upon your shoulders now fling ye 
Your treasures and gold. 

498 



NATIONAL 

In the Lord hope, and pleading 

His counsel implore, 
Your band He'll be leading. 

To Canaan's green shore! 

There in the land of our sires 

We never shall fear 
The lash which hatred inspires 

In evil men here. 
We, too, will the sword don. 

And the foe bravely breast, 
Up, brethren ! and lead on 

To our land in the East! 

With joy we'll our land till. 

Her clods melt with caresses, 
With plenty our stores fill. 

With old wine our presses. 
We'll be gleeful and care-free. 

Our souls within will rejoice. 
Up, brethren! why pause ye? 

On to Jerusalem, our choice! 

On Moriah's high mountain. 

We'll our banner outspread, 
We'll drink from God's fountain, 

Our ranks He will head ! 
From the City's high tower 

The Lord's standard will wave, 
Brethren, up ! summon power, 

March to Zion ! Ye brave ! 

Naphtali Herz Imber. 
(Translated by Rebecca A. Altman.) 

The Cedars of Lebanon 

DUT the waves of the fury of nations 

Swept down on the trees of the vale. 
Like rolling and wild inundations 
Lashed on by the blasts of the gale. 

499 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And the strength of the cedars was shattered, 
Their frames into shreds were cleft, 

And their limbs on the billows were scattered,- 
Yet the roots in the mountain were left. 

And the seeds of the trees were taken 
And lodged in the land of their foes, 

And there untended, forsaken. 
New cedars arose. 

And the foe his proud branches entwining 
Above them, shut off from their view 

The sun that upon them was shining, 
And robbed them of rain and of dew. 

And mocked were the once mighty cedars. 
Their name a disgrace was become, 

For they had not, they had not the leaders 
To bring them home. 

Henry Schnittkind. 



O Sweet Anemones! 

r^ SWEET anemones on Sharon's plain, 
^^^ Light dancing seraphim of sun and rain. 
Was he not one of us, was he not ours? 
And yet he saved not us, O crimson flowers! 

As stars that bloom in heaven, full-bloom and still. 
As native stags that leap from hill to hill, 
As vou, dear blossom-stars, on native plains. 
So planted here, with God, our home remains. 

I, too, would perish here, where he has died. 
But felled by horse and spear, not crucified ; 
I, man of peace, would pour, O Rock of God, 
My freedom or my blood on Zion's sod. 

500 



NATIONAL 

When pagans sweep thy fields with withering blast, 

My heart is sanctified to death at last; 

Its taste is honey-sweet within my mouth, 

For we that drink with God can dread no drouth. 

O sweet anemones on Sharon's plain, 
A spring shall come for us, to bloom again, — 
To God a day, to us a thousand years, — 
Who still remembers, lives, refreshed with tears. 

Jessie E. Sampter. 



Zion 

T AND of the cedar and palm, 
*-^ Land of the olive and myrtle. 
Breathing of Gilead's balm 

Over fragrant fields and fertile. 
From the sunset shore of the sea 
Greeting of peace to thee! 

Though the din of strange cities resound 
In our ears, forget we can never 

Those piercing, lingering sounds 
Or David's lyre, that ever 

To Zion's Redeemer upraise 

Their pasan of deathless praise. 

And we that long for that sunny field. 

The abode of our youth, where God's spirit 

First to mortals revealed 

Those truths that we still inherit. 

Field fertile with fruitage of glory 

And haunted by memories hoar}^ 

Happy are they that sow 

Thy seed and reap of their sowing! 
Happy! they never shall know 

The exile's sorrow, not knowing 
The infinite heart-ache and pain 
Of the toilers that toil in vain. 

501 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

From the land of our sojourning 

Zion, to thee, nor burn 
With a fever or fretful yearning 

In the patience of hope we toil 

Again to possess thy soil. 

Land of the cedar and palm, 
Land of the olive and myrtle, 

Breathing Gilead's balm 

Over fragrant fields and fertile. 

From the sunset shore of the sea 

In God's time we shall come to thee. 

Eugene Kohn. 



The Awakening of Israel 

IWIUST the sea plead in vain that the river 
^^*' May return to its mother for rest 
And the earth beg the rain-clouds to give her 
Of dews she has drawn from her breast? 

Swing inward, Oh ! gates of the future. 
Swing outward, ye doors of the past, 

For the soul of Israel is waking 
And rising from slumber at last. 

The black clouds of night are retreating, 
The white peaks have signaled the day; 

And freedom her long roll is beating 
And calling her sons to the fray. 

From the dust where his proud tyrants found him 
Unhonored, and scorned and betrayed, 

He shall rise with the sunlight around him 
And rule in the realm he has made. 

Anonymous. 



502 



NATIONAL 



Sing Unto God a New Song 

CING unto God a new song, sing no more 
^ These melodies of melancholic strain 

That mourn the vanished glory that did reign 
O'er Zion in the golden days of yore. 
Wherefore forever weep, fore'er deplore 

Our loss? Vain are our tears, our prayer is vain 

Would we our ancient heritage regain, 
Then must our song on faith's own pinions soar. 

Sing then to God a joyous song, 
Yea, sing Redemption's sun new-risen in the East, 

A song of triumph till the echoes ring 
Back from the ample heaven's azure dome; 

For yet shall we, from evil's chains released, 
Zion, to thee return, our hallowed home. 

Eugene Kohn. 



In Exile 

r^ O, with the wand'rer's staff in hand, 

^-* Without a home, without a land, 

Without to-morrow, or to-day. 

Ne'er tolerated, e'er in flight 

Not found by day where lodged by night. 

Forever woe, woe, woe, 

Forever go, go, go, 

Forever drive, drive, drive, 

The time we barely keep alive. 

Our greatness lieth in the dust; 
Our holy life — a life unjust; 
Our glorious name — a danger great; 
Our proud descent — a cause for hate; 
Our genius — nothing but a crime; 
Our culture — scoffed at all the time. 

503 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

E'er troubles grave, grave, grave, 
Forever slave, slave, slave. 
E'er seek to know, know, know, 
Joys in the curses of the foe. 

And thus year after year, alas, 
Yea, thus age after age doth pass 
Without a hope, without a goal, 
While dread and terror fill our soul, 
, As wildly wandering we go. 
From pain to pain, from woe to woe. 
E'er on the way, way, way, 
Forever sigh, sigh, sigh, 
And luckless e'en when we die. 

But from our ancient city thus 
Beckons our ancient God to us, 
Whose voice conveys this message blest, 
"Come here, at last you'll find your rest! 
Yea, here, at last upon your desolate hill 
The son of Judah dreameth still." 
Then hear Him call, call, call, 
Go, seek the Temple's ancient wall. 
Yea, trust in God, God, God, 
Lo, there will cease the tyrant's rod. 

Morris Rosenfeld. 
(Translated by Isidore Myers.) 

Psalm CXXVI 

"VY/HEN Zion's dire captivity 

'^ The Lord had turned once more, 
And we, like those who dream amazed 

Could scarce believe it o'er. 
Then was our mouth with laughter filled 

Our tongue with song too, fraught; 
Then said the heathen Lo! the Lord 

For them great things hath wrought! 

504 



^ 



NATIONAL 

The Lord hath done great things for us, 

At which we are elate. 
Turn, as the southern streams, again, 

O Lord ! our captive state. 
Who sow in tears, shall reap in joy. 

And he that wand'ring grieves, 

Yet bearing precious seeds, ere long. 

Shall with the joyous voice of song, 

Come laden with his sheaves. L R. B. 

Zionism 

npHE dreamers are not dead in Israel. 
•*" To-day the young dream dreams, and with 

the old 
Live visions of a deathless past. They dwell 

In every land, yet hills of Zion hold 
More glory than the fame of kings can bring; 

More hope than ages have preserved. 
The voices of a golden morning ring 

With victories, extolling gifts reserved 
For those who 'neath the vine and fig tree sit. 

And people realms bereft of ancient charms. 
The souls of prophets with their souls are knit, 

And martyred heroes call again to arms 
The sons of Judah. Stars of morning shine, 
And dawn breaks o'er an orphaned Palestine. 

Joseph Leiser. 

Theodore Herzl 

CUCH men are rare — they tow'r above mankind 

•^ Like Himalayan peaks that touch the skies, — 
Missioned for a majestic enterprise. 

They sway not in the fury of the wind ; 

And on the scroll of life their names are signed 
In characters of flame. The great and wise 
Know them afar, and at their bidding rise 

To nobler conquests of the heart and mind. 

505 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Thou, too, hast dreamed a world compelling dream- 
With glance prophetic and unfalt'ring soul 

Thy Israel thou strovest to redeem, 

And lead the sorrowing to a longed-for goal. 

If thou wert dreaming, Herzl, sleep content — 

A dream like Thy God unto Moses sent. 

Felix N. Gerson. 



To Theodore Herzl 

Vf/HO called thee to such holy high estate? 

' Who taught thy lips the all-redeeming Word, 
Which touched us to emotions as we heard 
And soars aloft to Him, that guides our fate? 
Who kindled Ardor's undiminished flame; 
To make thee bold and eager to attain. 
Despite all that gives thee deepest pain, 
The highest good, not evanescent fame; 
Who doth sustain the skyward lifted hand, ' 
The hopeful sign and symbol of our zeal, 
Upraised high our shattered nerves to steel 
As if in warning that we dauntless stand? — 
It Is the God within the nation's soul 
That spurs him on to dare to do the right. 
He guides his steps and steadieth his sight 
That he may strive unswerving towards the goal; 
Like all true servants of the living God, 
Thou gavest heed to that Celestial Voice 
And didst assume our burdens, of Thy Choice. 
Thy heart Inspired, thy spirit overawed, 
Remain our true exemplar In the strife, 
Though good reward or evil be thy share 
We follow thee, for Zion everywhere 
To struggle for the newly dawning life. 

GUSTAV GOTTHEIL. 

(Translated by George Alexander Kohut.) 



506 



NATIONAL 



Theodore Herzl 

pAREWELL, O Prince, farewell, O sorely tried ! 

"■' You dreamed a dream and you have paid the cost 

To save a people leaders must be lost; 
By foes and followers be crucified, 
Yet 'tis your body only that has died. 

The noblest soul in Judah is not dust 

But fire that works in every vein and must 
Reshape our life, rekindling Israel's pride. 

So we behold the captain of our strife 
Triumphant in this moment of eclipse; 

Death has but fixed him to immortal life, 
His flag upheld, the trumpet at his lips. 

And while we, weeping rend our garment's hem, 

"Next year," we cry, "next year, Jerusalem." 

Israel Zangwill. 



Theodore Herzl 

DEACE ! no tear for him who sleepeth near. 

*■■ No mourning word, 

Splendid paean rather and ringing cheer 

Be heard ! 
Let his white bones know, 
Let his soul discover 
Its loving overflow 
Of him his people's lover 
In our voices thunder. 
In our labor's glory! 
Find in each tone asunder 
His triumphant story — 
Of his hope grown free. 
Of his battles won^ 
Of Lion's victory, 

507 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And Judah's noonday sun. 
Hosannah ! thou that sleepest here, 
Hosannah! thou that sleepest here! 
Hosannah, leader 'gainst all fear! 

Israel lives anew! 

Harry Myers. 



The Poefs Spirit 

To the Memory of Naphtali Herz Imber 

\TO dirge or solemn bell 

•^-^ We toll for thee, oh Voice, 

Stilled by the sudden knell 

That ends all mortal choice; 
Thy tuneful spirit free of earth 

Must ever more rejoice. 

Like gull or petrel free 

That soars o'er billows, brave. 

Thy soul shall spring in glee 
Above the narrow grave; 

Thy hymns shall live while Zion lives, 
While Israel's banners wave. 

As perched on mountain crags 

The eagle finds a nest, 
Free from earth's binding rags 

Wandering Soul take rest. 
Till the full message of thy song 

Thy brothers here attest. 

Singers like thee on earth 

Tuning the immortal lyre. 
Old Nations give re-birth, 

Hopes shattered, new desire ; 
Beacons that prove for doubting sons 

Jehovah's living fire. 

Joseph Fitzpatrick. 

508 



NATIONAL 

A Hymn of Zion 

"7 ION, we love thee well, 
^-^ Fair land of Israel, 
For thee we long! 
Thou art our heart's desire, 
Our altar's holy fire, 
The breath that stirs our lyre, 
To Freedom's song! 

Land which the Jordan laves, 
Land of the sacred graves. 

For thee we weep! 
Land where the Prophets trod. 
Where Truth erst swayed the rod, 
Where Psalmists sang of God, 

Thy faith we keep! 

Thy dawn now fills our eyes. 
Thy hope now tints our skies — 

Our soul's athrill! 
A shoot from Jesse's stem, 
Shall rule Jerusalem, 
Bright be his diadem. 

O'er Zion's hill! 



Joel Blau. 



509 



VII 
THE MODERN PERIOD 



Bar Kochba 

YV/EEP, Israel! your tardy meed outpour 
^^ Of grateful homage on his fallen head, 
That never coronal of triumph wore, 

Untombed, dishonored, and unchapleted. 
If Victory makes the hero, raw Success 

The stamp of virtue, unremembered 
Be then the desperate strife, the storm and stress 

Of the last Warrior Jew. But if the man 
Who dies for freedom, loving all things less, 

Against world-legions, mustering his poor clan ; 
The weak, the wronged, the miserable, to send 

Their death-cry's protest through the ages' span- 
If such an one be worthy, ye shall lend 

Eternal thanks to him, eternal praise, ' 

Nobler the conquered than the conqueror's end ! 

Emma Lazarus. 



The Jewish Exile 

After the suppression of Bar Kochba's revolt, the 
Jews were debarred by Hadrian from entering Jeru- 
salem. They obtained the privilege, however, of as- 
sembling once a year, upon the Mount of Olives, on 
the anniversary of the burning of the Temple; and 
from that eminence the patriots took a distant look 
at the beloved city. 

"VV/HEREFORE weep our brethren yonder, 
^^ Gathered from afar and near; 
Wherefore, father, tell me, wherefore 
Are these weary pilgrims here? 

Ah, my child, a day of mourning 

Brings together Israel's fold ; 
Many of these weary pilgrims 

Once were warriors, strong and bold. 

513 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

See, my child, the city yonder, 
That was once thy father's home; 

Now dishonored and forsaken, 
'Tis the seat of hated Rome. 

, For we rose In strong rebellion, 
I, my child, and all my kin, 
And Judea's long lost freedom 
Once again we sought to win. 

But the great decree of Heaven 
Was against our glorious band ; 

And at Bethar's bloody battle 
Died the noblest of the land. 

Yet the fierce and vengeful Roman, 

Not content with such a prize, 
Heeded not our women's mourning. 

Heeded not our children's cries. 

But he cast them from their country, 
From their own and native soil; 

Sold them into dreadful bondage. 
To a life of hated toil. 

Then defiled the sacred places 
With a ruthless hand and bold ; 

And the heathen dwells unpunished 
Where the priesthood dwelt of old. 

They have changed the walks of ZIon, 
Even changed her sacred name; 

They have reared a heathen temple 
On the ruins of our fame. 

And to fill the cup of sorrow, 

And to fill It to the brim, 
Hadrian hurled his mighty fiat 

With a purpose stern and grim, 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

That within yon sacred portals 

Israel's foot may never tread, 
Though beneath that soil lie buried 

All the dearest of our dead. 

Bitter, child, are all the tortures 

Of a cruel, heartless foe; 
Yet a life of hopeless exile 

Is by far the greatest woe. 

Here upon the Mount of Olives, 

Once a year, we still may meet. 
Where the city of our fathers 

May our tearful vision greet. 

So we gather from the mountains 

And we gather from the plain; 
Here, amid her desolation. 

We behold her once again. 

Till the sturdy sons of Jud^h 

Break the Roman's haughty pride, 

Never shall I cease my mourning 
Never shall my tears be dried. 

For I trust, the Lord in heaven. 

Mindful of his chosen gem. 
Will some day restore to glory 

Israel and Jerusalem. Leon HuhneRo 



The Jewish Pilgrim 

A RE these the ancient holy hills 
***" Where angels walked of old? 
Is this the land our story fills 

With glory not yet cold? 
For I have passed by many a shrine 

O'er many a land and sea; 
But still, oh ! promised Palestine, 

My dreams have been of thee. 

515 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

I see thy mountain cedar green, 

Thy valleys fresh and fair, 
With summers bright as they have been 

When Israel's home was there. 
Tho' o'er thee sword and time have passed, 

And cross and crescent shone, 
And heavily the chain has pressed 

Oh! they are still our own. 

Thine are the wandering race that go 

Unblest through every land, 
Whose blood hath stained the polar snow. 

And quench'd the desert sand. 
And thine the home of hearts that turn 

From all earth's shrines to thee 
With their lone faith for ages born 

In sleepless memory. 

For throngs have fallen, nations gone 

Before the march of time, 
And where the ocean rolled alone 

Are forests in their prime. 
Since gentile ploughshares marr'd the brow 

Of Zion's holy hill 
Where are the Roman eagles now? 

Yet Judah wanders still. 

And hath she wandered thus in vain 

A pilgrim of the past? 
No! long deferred her hope hath been 

But it shall come at last. 
For in her wastes a voice I hear, 

As from a prophet's urn, 
It bids the nations build not there 

For Jacob shall return. 

Oh! lost and loved Jerusalem 

Thy pilgrim may not stay 
To see the glad earth's harvest home 

In thy redeeming day. 

516 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

But now resigned in faith and trust 

I seek a nameless tomb ; 
At least beneath thy hallowed dust 

Oh ! give the wanderer room. 

Frances Browne. 

The Arch of Titus 

/^RUMBLING, age-worn, in Rome the eternal, 

Stands the arch of Titus' triumph, 
With its carven Jewish captives 
, Shouldering the holy Menorah. 

And each nightfall, when the turmoil 

Of the Petrine clangor ceaseth, 

Seven flames the arch illumine, 

Mystic glowings, burning strangely. 
Then cast oH their graven shackles, 

Judah's sons of marble graven, 
Living step they from the ruin. 
Living stride they from the Jordan. 

They are healed in Its waters. 

Till the freshness of each dawning, 

Then resume their ancient labor. 

Perfect marble, whole and holy. 
Dust of dust the wheeling seasons 
Grind that mighty arched splendor. 
Rase the Gaul and rase the Roman, 
Grind away their fame and glory. 

The shackled Jews alone withstand them. 

Shouldering their holy Menorah. 

Harry Wolfsohn. 
(Trans, from the Hebrew by Horace M. Kallen.) 

Tourist and Cicerone 

'*r^ OOD sir, thou didst me order 
^-^ To lead thee through this border. 
To view this very place ; 
But through this archway Roman 

517 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

With free will passeth no man 
Of all my suffering race. 

"See! with its decoration, 
This arch derides my nation, 

By Titus scourged and slain! 
It pictures his achievements, 
And all of our bereavements; 

Its sight fills me w^ith pain. 

"Then, sir, do not command me, 
Indeed, I would withstand thee, 

The custom I'll not break! 
Alone go through the gateway, 
While I around and straightway 

Will meet thee," thus he spake. 

"My faithful guide, know thy way 
Is parallel with my way," 

I forthwith made remark; 
"I hate the chariots gory. 
But love Judea's glory — 

The Candlestick and Ark." 

Whereat he gazed in wonder 
Upon my face, — and under 

His eyelids teardrops stole, 
He touched my hand then quickly, 
Half doubtfully, half meekly. 

And said, "Sh'ma Yisroel!" 

Of course, my tears descended, 
While I the greeting ended, 

"Adonoi Echod 1" 
Around the archway turning, 
The past within us burning — 

"Jehovah is oilr God." 

LuDwiG August Frankl. 
(Translated by Henry Cohen.) 

518 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



Judea 

T SAW in rift of cloud a beaming light 

That spread soft radiance over Judea's plain, 
Where mother of a race watched sunny rain 
Before red flashes told of stormy night. 
She looked afar, through misty ages vast, 
And saw her progeny the scorn of men, 
Far scattered, trod to earth to rise again. 
And hold distinction, though the world should last 
Till sun and planets fell in void of time 
And light was scant as when the world was born. 
She saw her sons surmount the stings ot scorn 
With sad eyes and with brow of care; sublime 
In aspect her breast throbbing with new life; 
Beheld universal motherhood's young 
Cease their dire bickerings, she stood among 
The children of the earth unstirred by strife; 
Saw creeds lose force in the long ages' span. 
One God, one hope, and peace o'erspread the earth. 
Regenerative man's new heart at bright. 
The soul's broad scope, and brotherhood of man. 

Charles M. Wallington. 

The Tombs of the Fathers 

IN Babylon they sat and wept 
* Down by the river's willowy side. 
And when the breeze their harp-strings swept, 
The strings of breaking hearts replied : 
A deeper sorrow now they hide; 
No Cyrus comes to set them free 
From ages of captivity. 

All lands are Babylons to them, 

Exiles and fugitives they roam: 
What is their own Jerusalem? 

The place where they are least at home! 

519 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Yet hither from all climes they come, 
And pay their gold for leave to shed 
Tears o'er the generations fled. 

Around, the eternal mountains stand, 
With Hinnom's darkling vale between; 

Old Jordan wanders through the land, 
Blue Carmel's seaward crest is seen ; 
And Lebanon, yet sternly green, 

Throws, when the evening sun declines, 

Its cedar shades in lengthening lines. 

But, ah ! forever vanished hence 
The Temple of the living God, 

Once Zion's glory and defence — 

Now mourn beneath the oppressor's rod 
The fields where faithful Abraham trod; 

Where Isaac walked by twilight gleam. 

And heaven came down on Jacob's dream. 

Forever mingled with this soil 

Those armies of the Lord of Hosts, 

That conquer'd Canaan, shared the spoil. 

Quelled Moab's pride, stormed Midian's posts. 
Spread paleness through Philistia's coasts, 

And taught the foes, whose idols fell, 

"There is a God in Israel." 

Now David's tabernacle gone, 

What mighty builder shall restore? 

The golden throne of Solomon, 
And ivory palace, are no more: 
The Psalmist's song, the Preacher's lore, 

Of all they did, alone remain 

Unperished trophies of their reign. 

Holy and beautiful, of old 

Was Zion 'midst her princely bowers; 
Besiegers trembled to behold 

520 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Bulwarks that set at nought their powers; 

Swept from the earth are all her towers; 
Nor is there — so is she bereft — 
One stone upon another left. 

The very site whereon she stood, 

In vain the foot, the eye would trace; 

Vengeance, for saints' and martyrs' blood, 
Her wails did utterly efface; 
Dungeons and dens usurp their place ; 

The Cross and Crescent shine afar, 

But where is Jacob's natal star? 

Still inexterminable — still 
Devoted to their mother-land. 

Her offspring haunt the temple hill. 
Amidst her desecration stand. 
And bite the lip, and clench the hand; 

Today in that lorn vale they weep, 

Where patriarchs, kings, and prophets sleep. 

flift fjfl ."jft stp, A 

And by the Gentiles in their pride 

Jerusalem is trodden down ; 
"How long? forever wilt thou hide 

Thy face, O Lord ! forever frown ? 

Israel was once thy glorious crown, 
In sight of all the heathen worn ; 
Now from thy brow indignant torn. 

"Zion, forsaken and forgot. 

Hath felt thy stroke, and owns It just; 

O God, our God ! reject her not. 

Whose sons take pleasure in her dust ; 
How is the fine gold dimmed with rust! 

The city, throned in gorgeous state. 

How doth she now sit desolate!" 

James Montgomery. 
521 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



The Wandering Jew 

CEEK not what I am to know, 

^ What my name is, never crave, 

God records it, Earth and Woe, 

It may radiate the grave. 
If at last my tears' long flow 

Should melt the stones to hear. 

Wandering ever — I, forlorn, 

Refuge seek for this poor frame. 

Thinking, suffering; — Man, base-born, 
Spurns my right, ignores my claim — 

I pass his tortures, scorn 
His piety and his jeers. 

Wandering ever — storms and ire 
Burst with fury on my brow, 

Adam's curse I bore entire, 

Wretched, yet too proud to bow; 

Victim ever, on the pyre 
I laved in grief each sin. 

Midst the whirlwind raging round, 
Vanished lands, seas disappeared, 

Crumbled all, mere dust I found. 
Empires, temples, shrines revered ; 

But immortal lived Thought bound 
My heart's sad depths within. 

From life's dawn that thought upgrew, 

Ever present to my mind, 
Vast, sublime, it shone and grew, 

All to it, — a setless sun. 
Glory o'er the Past it threw 

And o'er the Future — Light. 

522 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Longing for the Infinite 

Moved me ever, spurs me now, 

But the end has not dawned yet, 
Hope unripe hangs on the bough, 

Ages do I wait and fret 

For that which comes not nigh. 

Years to me are moments brief. 

Small the Universe appears, . 
Deep in thought, immersed in grief. 

Weighing tyrants with men's fears, 
Sweep I Hope's harp for relief 

And raise wild terror's cry. 

Every suffering has been mine — 

Outrage, insult, struggle, pain. 
Strong in sovereign thought divine. 

All I challenge, all disdain. 
Foes will fail — not my faith's shrine. 

No time has that uptorn. 

Seek not what I am to know. 

What my name is rests in gloom, 

God records it. Earth and Woe, 
But 'tis hidden from the Tomb; 

Torture me, contempt I show 

For pity as for scorn. David Levi. 



The Sentinel of the Ages 

T TNDER shining, under shadow, 
^^ At the gates of every land. 
All adown the lengthening ages. 

Men have seen a Sentry stand ; 
Looming grandly on the beauty 

Of the blue day's crystal light, 
Then anon, in darkness blending , 

With mystery of night; 

523 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

While his meditations linger 

Over glories that are past, 
And his keen prophetic vision 

Sees the good to come, at last. 

At the portals of some nations, 

We beheld him, as he stands 
Pale and haggard, weak and weary, 

With his grey head in his hands. 
Bowed in retrospective sorrow, 

For the infamy and scorn. 
For the ages of oppression 

By his people meekly borne ; 
Till his features are transfigured 

In a blaze of wrath divine. 
And his glassy eyes brim over 

With their bitter burning wine. 

At another gate we see him. 

In the vigor of full prime 
Mounted on a stalwart courser, 

For some charge or quest sublime; 
Be it to go forth to battle. 

In a cause of righteous strife. 
Winning liberty, or glory, 

With the purchase of his life. 
Or, at least, to gain his guerdon, 

And be named among the great, 
By the aid of wealth's distinction, 

Or some service to the State. 

Otherwhere, we see him, seated 

Underneath the arches vast 
Of some old arcade, surrounded 

With the records of the past. 
Over ancient tomes he ponders. 

Filled with figures rude and strange, 
Yet their contents he deciphers 

Through Time's labyrinthine range; 

524 



i 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Then to poesy he turneth 
And in numbers sweet recites: 

Or he wakes the soul of music 

In the harp whose chords he smites. 

Once again we see him, crouching 

On a devastated strand, 
Silent as the Sphinx of Egypt 

Billowed in the surging sand, 
For the lash of persecution, 

Heedless of all human right 
Fell upon him, watching, waiting. 

Till he sank beneath its might. 
And he lies there, bruised and bleeding 

But a brave old hero still. 
Hoping for his destined future. 

When his Fate has v^^rought its will. 

Nations, do you know this Sentry, 

Keeping guard, for ages long. 
Over learning, arts, religion. 

Through all cruelty and wrong? 
Patient under dire oppression. 

While the iron pierced his soul; 
With no armor for protection ; 

With no weapon but a Scroll — 
His one treasure; hear him crying, 

"Though I die, let this be true!" 
Is not his the voice of Jacob? 

Yes! it Is — it is — the Jew. 

Say you that his crime demanded 

Punishment from God and men? 
Nay ! With God alone be vengeance ; 

He Is merciful. But when 
Man metes out his ruthless judgments. 

With a mad presumption blind. 
He wreaks cruelties of demons 

On the weaker of his kind. 

525 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

It Is not for his defection 

That the Jew has met the sword: 

Christians slay their fellow-Christians, 
In the name of their own Lord. 

Has he sinned — this Jew immortal? 

Ay; but he is not alone; 
Christ is crucified forever 

In the House He calls His own. 
Multitudes bow down before Him 

And profess to own his sway, 
While their hearts are filled with idols, 

And they, Judas-like, betray 
Him who comes, as their Messiah, 

And their fealty would claim; 
But they pierce His soul with sorrows, 

Shouting praises to His name. 

Sinned the Jew? Well; he has suffered. 

When he saw his judgment come 
He bowed meekly to his sentence; 

Like the shorn lamb, he was dumb: 
Bearing shame, contempt, revilings, 

Grief and anguish, pain and death; 
Only saying: "God is holy; 

He is One," with latest breath. 
Like to Christ, in his submission 

He has met a martyr's fate. 
But his resurrection cometh ; 

Though it tarry, he can wait. 

Yes ! Already we perceive him, 

Rising up on every hand ; 
Gliding into power and station, 

With the world's wealth at command. 
In the forum, in the senate, 

Lo! he wins immortal fame, 
Halls of learning, marts of commerce, 

Ring with echoes of his name, 

526 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

On each plane of high endeavor 

He is foremost in the strife 
Culling everlasting laurels 

From the battlefields of Life. 

So God's ancient, chosen people 

As His Sentinel still stands 
With the standard of Jehovah 

In the strong, uplifted hands; 
With his jewelled breastplate gleaming 

On his proudly heaving chest; 
And a lamp forever burning, 

On his helmet's lofty crest; 
While he welcomes the down-trodden 

To his hospitable shores, 
And in streams of richest bounty 

Blessings on his brethren pours. 

Standing thus, as great exemplar 

To the world, the Jew appears; 
Bringing hope, as well as warning. 

To Humanity's late years, 
Showing how, as King, God ruleth. 

When mankind would test His sway, 
Yet is tender as a Father 

When, as children, they obey. 
Prophet, statesman, warrior, scholar, 

Israel's glories shall increase, 
When he claims his royal birthright; 

Brother to the Prince of Peace. 

Ibbie McColm Wilson. 



527 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Before Battle 

\Y/E have tolled, O Lord, with our blood and might 
^^ And have offered a hymn to Thee ; 
And in pain and rage we have spent our light, 

And our nights in misery; 
We have dug the trench and built the site, 

That wt might be near to Thee ; 
O Lord our God, we have spent our light 

In search of Thee. 

Garish culture we spurned as we spurned all things 

That were not in the grace of Thee ; 
And we bowed our heads and our hearts to kings 

Who wore crowns by their claims in Thee; 
In the deep of night we have sung Thy praise, 

Unperishing songs of Thee; 
O Lord our God, we have spent our days 

In praise of Thee. 

We've preserved our flesh from the joys of lust 

That we might be clean with Thee ; 
We have fed our souls on the dryest dust, 

That we might keep true to Thee ; 
We have fought, and many the odds have stood, 

We have conquered the world for Thee ; 
O Lord our God, we have spilled our blood 

For love of Thee. 

We have toiled, O Lord, with our blood and might, 

And have offered a hymn to Thee ; 
Yet our days You've cursed with the gloom of night. 

And our nights with misery; 
We have kept our faith through the bitterest strife. 

Through the bitterest strife for Thee; 
O Lord our God, take of our dust. 

Our faith in Thee. 

Samuel Roth. 

528 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



The Jew 

(Dedicated to Benjamin F. Peixotto) 

I_IIS dark face kindled in the East, 

•*• ■*• He walks our Europe like a dream, 

And in his great beard gravely seem 
To meet the poet and the priest; 
His nation spent, his temple sacked, 

A haughty exile under ban. 
From pole to pole he holds intact 

The ancient grandeur of the man. 

Vain burnt the fires his frame to melt, 

His tough will turned the rack to straw; 

The granite tablets were his law. 
And to the one high God he knelt! 
Before his zeal fell hate and spite ; 

Wide grew the narrowness of marts, 
Immortal, sole cosmopolite, 

He gave for freedom all the arts! 

Always the ages' argonaut, 

The foremost sails he followed still. 
Gave to the Christian thrift and skill, 

And peace and trade to heathens taught. 

If ran to greed his heart sometimes. 
By reverend robbers wrung to pelf, 

A child of genius in all climes. 
He drew the muses to himself. 

Of God's august historian heir, 

Who made creation eloquent, 

To themes occult and grand he bent 
The realms of letters everywhere; 
His pencil spurned, his marble crushed 

When art to monks its lease resigned, 
The splendor of his numbers hushed. 

The rude music of mankind. 

529 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Oh ! human faith in God's good grace, 

Wait boldly and ye shall not fail, 

The patient ages must avail — 
If freedom knows no waiting place. 
The Zion holy to our hosts. 

This reverend world — made ruin by 
The curse of shrines, and thrones, and ghosts — 

Art, toil, and hope shall purify. 

George Alfred Townsend. 



The Everlasting Jew 

f IFT up thy head, O Israel, gird thine armor on 

■^^ anew. 

There's a rainbow in the heavens, there is work for 

thee to do. 
Hear not the jibing stranger, heed not the envious 

crew, 
The only real aristocrat is the everlasting Jew! 

Thou hast pride of ancient lineage, canst boast of 

blood that's blue. 
Thine ancestors were princes, e'en when this old world 

was new — 
Ere Greece and Tyre and Babylon had disappeared 

from view — 
Thou wast still the sole aristocrat, the everlasting Jew! 

Although a scattered people, e'en though thy numbers 

few. 
Thy star is still ascending to rejuvenate anew 
Thy ancient place and heritage to prove the mission 

true 
That the only real aristocrat is the everlasting Jew! 

Henry B. Sommer. 



530 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



Israel 

CHE stands among the nations of the earth, 
^ Unique, a figure of pathetic grace ; 

God's chosen daughter of the human race, 
Destined to woe and grandeur from her birth. 
She sees her children scattered, doomed to dearth, 

And in her dusky eyes there shines the trace 

Of tears, that wet her pale prophetic face. 
Knowing her people's pristine power and worth. 

Oh, stricken Mother, unto whom we owe 
The life and light that spring from one pure fount. 

Whence all our laws and inspirations flow; 
Not vainly have ye shed your blood and tears. 
Withstanding scorn and hatred all these years — ■ 
He guards thee still, Who spoke from Sinai's Mount! 

Ida Goldsmith Morris. 



Israel Forsaken 
CAzubah) 

I 

A H ! ingrate people whom I sought to please ! 
*"*" Ah! cruel people, scornful, careless men, 
And dark, sly women, dreaming of new^ ease — 

Abandon me! Scowl calmly on me when 
You do behold me! You who brought me wine 

To drink, fierce-spiced, and pomegranates to eat, 
And fat, black grapes, red apricots and fine 

Wheat cakes and glossy olives sweet: 
Who gave me smoothly flowing, oily phrase 
And guerdon brought me of ecstatic praise: 
Lo! now because I sit alone forlorn, 
Throw me your bitter herbs and crumbs of scorn, 

531 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

II 

I danced before you in the Satrap's hall ; 

For you I trained my small elastic feet. 
I wore your garlands, bowed and carried all 

Your flowery offerings. Freely did I eat 
Of your rich banquet, cruel people, cold 

And scornful people! Gifts ye cast me now, 
Because I sit alone and have grown old 

Of sick'ning lees of wine, no wreaths for brow 
Not ambergris nor cassia do ye bring, 
Nor frankincense, nor any precious thing! 
You only laugh and thrust your stinging words 
At 'Azubah, stabbing her heart like swords. 

Ill 

Ye fondled once my black, smooth hair, and said, 
"See how her tresses glisten in the light!" 

Ashes are now strewn upon my faded head, 
No longer lives in eyes of mine the sprite 
Of joyance. All my face is worn and wan, 
My gold-embroidered raiment is threadbare; 

The sea-shell color from my cheek hath gone, 
I sit and wrap myself in sack-cloth wear. 

"Who cares for 'Azubah?" I say and sigh. 

Forsake me cruel people ; pass me by ; 

No pleasance grant me, sing me no joy-song. 

Too old I am and weak, erst fair and strong. 

IV 

Ah! surely God shall cause to flow for me 

Some rills of comfort through the wilderness 
And cause to grow some balm-exhaling tree 

On the wide desert of my loneliness! 
I must not sit in hopeless solitude 

List'ning to the merry voices in the street, 
Nursing my horrid pain to quietude. 

Envious of sunny faces I may meet. 

532 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

'Azubah, once all joyless, joys shall glean, 
The desert shall be fruitful and grow green ; — 
God whispers me! So feed me with your scorn, 
Oh! ingrate people, while I sit forlorn! 

Charles Leon Gumpert. 



^ Puissance of the Jew 

pOR, if we be not of the lost Ten Tribes, 
■■■ At least we have procured them harbourage — 

A shelter from the flouts, the sneers, the gibes 
Of malice that befits not this fair age ! — 
Turn where you will, each blood-stained, guilty page, 
The foreign hatred ever doth abide. 
The Jew is menaced still from every side. 

Are there not signs that still God loveth them? — 
Whate'er they touch turns golden in their hands, 

And stone by stone the new Jerusalem 
Is rising 'mid the waste of other lands. 
For as their Wealth, so too their Power expands — 

From East to West the sky is all aflame 

With dawning greatness of the Jewish name ! 

C. W. Wynne. 



Honor of the Jews 

TTHRICE happy nation! Favorite of heaven! 
'*' Selected from the kingdoms of the earth, 
To be His chosen race, ordained to spread 
His glory through remotest realms, and teach 
The Gentile world Jehovah's awful name. 

William Hodson. 



533 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Mock on! Mock on! 

JVyiOCK on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau, 
^"'*' Mock on, mock on, 'tis all in vain; 
You throw the sand against the wind 
And the wind blows it back again. 

And every sand becomes a gem 

Reflected in the beams divine. 
Blown back they blind the mocking eye 

But still in Israel's paths they shine. 

William Blake. 

''His People'' 

LIE set us free — 
•*■ "*• To bear the yoke — 
"Let them serve Me," 
'Twas thus He spoke. 

He called us "Mine," 

Not for desire. 
To be call'd Thine 

Meant sword and fire, 

And anguish sharp — 

In ev'ry land 
The exile's harp 

Forgot his hand. 

They reap'd their own ; 

God's Acre ours! 
On graves alone. 

Might we grow flowers. 

But oh ! worth while, 

Strong love divine 
Outcast, or vile — 

To be call'd Thine. 

534 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

To feel Thy love 

Like shepherding — 
Like brooding dove, 

Like eagle's wing! 

As mothers speak 

To sons distrest, 
The sore and weak 

Thou comfortest. 

Oh ! worth the cost, 

And welcome pain! 
World's love well lost 

Thy love to gain. 

We will serve Thee, 

As Jacob swore, 
"This God shall be 

Mine evermore!" 

His oath we swear, 

His blessing take; 
Thy yoke we bear 

For Thy name's sake! 

Anonymous. 

The Jew is True 

r^ O forth among this homeless race, 

^^ This landless race that knows no place 

Or name or nation quite its own, 

And see their happy babes at play. 

Palace or Ghetto, rich or poor, 

As thick as birds about your door 

At morn some sunny Vermont May, 

Then think of Christ and these alone. 

Yet we deride, we jeer, we gibe 

To see their plenteous babes; we say 

''Behold the Jew and all his tribe." 

Yet Solomon upon his throne 

Was not more kingly crowned, 

535 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

More surely born to lord, to lead, 
To sow the land with Abram's seed. 
Because their babes are healthful born 
And welcomed as the welcome morn. 
Hear me this prophecy and heed, 
Except we cleanse us kirk and creed, 
Except we wash us word and deed, 
The Jew shall rule us — reign the Jew. 
And just because the Jew is true. 
Is true to nature, true to truth; 
Is clean, is chaste, as trustful Ruth, 
Who bore us David, Solomon — 
The Babe that far, first Christmas dawn. 

vfc ^ *jr ^» 

The nation, aye, the Christian race. 
Here fronts its Sybil, face to face. 
And I must say, say now to you, 
Whate'er the cost, of fortune, fame. 
The Christian is a thing of shame — 
Must say because I know it true, 
The better Christian is the Jew. 

Joaquin Miller. 



O Israel 

/^ ISRAEL, thy glory gleamed 
^^ Through long ages long ago ; 

O Israel, a David dreamed 
Within thy tents of snow; 
Thy warriors wise, and brave, and good, 
Thy women queens of womanhood, 
A pillared cloud, and manna food, 

O Israel, sweet Israel. 

O Israel, again I see 
Thy chariot in the sky! 

The seed of Abraham shall be 
Through all eternity ; 

536 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Our fathers' faith, our fathers' God, 
The paths of peace wherein they trod, 
With love, with truth, thy soul be shod, 
O Israel, sweet Israel. 

Robert Loveman. 

The Everlasting Jew 
(From "Hellas") 
'X'HE Jew of whom I spake is old, so old 
■*■ He seems to have outlived a world's decay; 
The hoary mountains and the wrinkled ocean 
Seem younger still than he ; his hair and beard 
Are whiter than the tempest-sifted snow ; 
His cold pale limbs and pulseless arteries 
Are like the fibres of a cloud instinct 
With light, and to the soul that quickens them 
Are as the atoms of the mountain-drift 
To the winter wind ; but from his eye looks forth 
A life of unconsumed thought which pierces 
The present, and the past, and the to-come. 

Thou art an adept in the difficult lore 
Of Greek and Frank philosophy ; thou numberest 
The flowers, and thou measurest the stars; 
Thou severest element from element; 
Thy spirit is present in the past, and sees 
The birth of this old world through all its cycles 
Of desolation and loveliness, 
And when man was not, and how man became 
The monarch and the slave of this low sphere, 
And all its narrow circles — it is much. 
I honor thee, and would be what thou art 
Were I not what I am; but the unborn hour, 
Cradled in fear and hope, conflicting storms. 
Who shall unveil? Nor thou, nor I, nor any 
Mighty or wise. I apprehended not 
What thou hast taught me, but I now perceive 
That thou art no interpreter of dreams; 

537 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Thou dost not own that art, device, or God, 
Can make the future present — let it come ! 
Moreover thou disdainest us and ours! 
Thou art as God, whom thou contemplatest. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley. 



Jews 

DRIDE and humiliation hand in hand 

*" Walked with them through the world where'er 

they went, 
Trampled and beaten were as the sand, 
And yet as unshaken as the continent. 

For in the background, figures vague and vast, 
Of patriarchs and of prophets rose sublime, 

And all the great traditions of the past 
They saw reflected in the coming time. 

Anonymous. 

IsraeVs Spiritual Lamp 
(From **The Spanish Gypsy") 

T ABIDE 

By that wise spirit of listening reverence 
Which marks the boldest doctors of our race. 
For Truth, to us, is like a living child 
Born of two parents: if the parents part 
And will divide the child, how^ shall it live? 
Or, I will rather say: Two angels guide 
The paths of man, both aged and yet young, 
As angels are, ripening through endless years. 
On one he leans: some call her Memory, 
And some Tradition ; and her voice is sweet. 
With deep mysterious accords: the other, 
Floating above, holds down a lamp which streams 
A light' divine and searching on the earth. 
Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields 

538 



THE IVIODERN PERIOD 

Yet clings with loving cheek, and shines anew, 
Reflecting all the rays of that bright lamp 
Our angel Reason holds. We had not walked. 
But for Tradition; we walk evermore 
To higher paths, by brightening Reason's lamp. 

George Eliot. 



The Spirit of Hebraism 

'T'HEY tell me my spirit's departed, 
•*■ That my body of soul is bereft; 
And that barren 'midst strangers I wander 

And that no inspiration is left 
But my vanishing fires ancestral 

Where the last faint flashes are seen, 
And that like to the poor and the stranger, 

What is left by the world I glean. 

They tell me, not knowing my Spirit 

Like an ember that never grows cold, 
Tho' smouldering in its own ashes 

Yet murmurs and grows as of old. 
Oh, my Spirit awaits but my seeking 

To burst like a spring from the soil, 
And if once it be free from confinement 

It will vest in all fruit of my toil. 

It will live in the colors on canvas, 

And survive in the hewn marble plan. 
And in song and in music and story 

To the last generation of man. 
It will speak from the lips of new Prophets, 

And their truth from the heights will be hurled. 
From a model city of Justice 

Where its flag will blazon unfurled. 

From the Hebrew of Harry Wolfsohn". 
(Translated by H. B. Ehrmann.) 

539 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Zions Universal Temple 

T TNDER the Orient skies of sapphire where the sun 

^^ is all aglow, 

With a radiance far surpassing all the western climes 

can know, 
There's a pathos haunting ever in the sunlight's splen- 
dor there — 
For old Zion's temple mould'ring, for old Zion once 
so fair. 

For old Zion once so fair, 
But now wrapt in deep despair; 
Fled the glory 
Of its story. 
Once of majesty so rare. 

But away w^ith all this moaning that is playing fast 

and loose 
With the sentiments sure tending now to break a 

people's truce; 
For affection once divided, try it may, can never stand 
As the symbol of the union that shall mark Messiah's 
land — 

Vision-traced Messiah's land, 
Where true love shall sway its wand. 
Love the token 
Of unbroken 
Peace, that lords at God's command. 

Liquid gold of sun's own moulding bent to make a 

world-wide dome. 
Shall in future roof the temple marking every nation's 

home : 
Paved by earth and sea together, shall its tesselated 

floor 
On its huge mosaic gather all the nations that adore — 
Nations that shall soon adore 
Zion's God of cherished yore, 
With the paeans 
That the aeons 
Echo shall forevermore. Harry Weiss. 

540 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



A Song of Israel 

r\ ISRAEL! wanderer through the weary years 
^^ Of wild unrest ; 

A world-wide pilgrimage of hopes and fears, 
Sometimes in joy, but oft'ner far in tears, 
As God knows best. 

Since Jacob laid him down that night to sleep 

On Bethel's stone, 
And saw the angel legions downward sweep, 
Their w^atch around the fugitive to keep — 

Never alone. 

Beside the majestic Nile, on Egypt's sand, 

He pitched his tent ; 
There on the desert saw the uplifted hand, 
In cloud and fire still pointing to the land 

Of sweet content. 

Beside the Euphrates, where Babylon's wall 

So proudly stood 
He saw the giant empires rise and fall, 
A captive exile, yet unharmed through all. 

Beside that flood. 

And when in wrath the Roman eagles came 

To Zion's Hill, 
And drove him out in thunder and in flame, 
A stranger in the earth — Jehovah's name 

Upheld him still. 

See yonder, on the snow-clad Russian plain. 

His children driven. 
Beset and hunted by the imperial train 
Like sheep by wolves. But surely not in vain 

They cry to Heaven. 

541 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Far brighter than the Northern-lights that gleam 

Upon the air, 
The signals of the great Shekinah stream 
And, like the memories of a blessed dream, 

Bid him good cheer! 

Good cheer, O Jacob ! though a wanderer still 

In all the earth. 
Th\^ foes will but the promises fulfill 
And drive the exile home to Zion's Hill, 

That gave him birth. 

A nation scattered through the earth, yet one 

In every land ; 
As the blue waters of the Gulf-stream run 
Through the high seas, yet mingling still with none, 

Behold God's hand ! 

God speed the day when Jew and Gentiles all 

Shall meet as one 
At the glad welcome of their Father's call 
In the dear home where shadows never fall, 

Their warfare done, 

J. H. CUTHBERT. 

The Fated Race 

"yjr/HAT! still reject the fated race 
^^ Thus long denied repose. 
What! madly striving to efiface 
The rights that Heaven bestows! 

Say, flows not in each Jewish vein, 

Unchecked, without control, 
A tide as pure, as free from stain, 

As warms the Christian soul ? 

Do ye not yet the times discern 

That these shall cease to roam; 
That Shiloh pledged for their return 

Will bring his ransomed home? J 

542 



1 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Be error quick to darkness hurl'd ! 

No more with hate pursue, 
For He who died to save a world — 

Immanuel — was a Jew. Anonymous. 

People of Zion 

I7ROM far-off ages hath this people sprung, 

•'• To Yahweh clinging still, as they have clung 

The centuries through. Tenacity of mind 

In every generation — well defined — 

And purposes unshaken, are the fruit 

Of worship such as theirs. They pay no suit 

To king or prince for favors. Like a rock 

That's beaten by the waves they stand the shock 

Of prejudice, that, never ceasing, rolls 

And rushes all around them. And their souls 

Within their temples cluster, drawing near 

The altar that has ever been so dear 

To Israel; and Israel's mighty God 

Seems here to speak the plainer. From the rod 

Of gentile hatred here they turn to pray. 

For this to them seems the most righteous way. 

While we, whose minds in every season turn 

To seek or find some "New Religion," learn 

To look upon the Israelitish men 

With reverence for their steadfast worship. When 

The "candles" we have lighted waver so 

That we are lost in "ists" and "isms," lo! 

We see their great lamp burning still and bright; 

A long white pathway shining on the night ! 

Marie Harrold Garrison. 

Israel's Mission 

T HAD a mighty vision from the skies, 

A glorious vision of the years to come; 
I saw a noble brotherhood arise 

And life was love, and every heart was one. 

543 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Bound by the golden chains that none can break 

Each unto each, 
The morning stars together sang "awake!" 

And God did teach. 

Ay e'en the God that Israel loved so well, 
Who taught of old upon the holy mount. 

Whose glowing words made Moses' bosom swell, 
E'en as the waters of a living fount. 

And then I cried : The prophet's words were true. 

Time's deathless page 
Hath seen at last the promise old yet new: 

The Golden Age ! 

A great light like a blessing o'er 4:hem fell, 
A song of triumph burst upon the air, 

The prophet's words were far too weak to tell 
Half of the glory that was pictured there. 

All to the living God of Jacob bowed 

At set of sun, i 

A million voices chanted clear and loud — 

"His name is One!" 

But ah! the vision was too pure and bright 
To linger on this fleeting earth of ours, 

It faded like the glittering stars of night, 
Or like the fragrance of the summer flowers. 

And yet a meaning mystically deep. 

Strange and intense. 
Thrilled through that vision with a wildly sweet 

Prophetic sense! 

O Israel from thy sleep arise, and dare 

To take the part God gave His chosen few! 

Then rise ! oh, nobly rise ! all ye who bear 
The sacred though oft-hated name of Jew! 

544 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Thine Is the work! then falter not — press on! 

With heart and soul, 
Press onward with a purpose true and strong 

To reach the goal ! 

Thy task once done, no more the Earth shall weep, 
But wear in peace, Love's sacred starry crown ; 

The nations shall their swords to ploughshares beat, 
And the fierce lion with the lamb lie down. 

While God shall smile on those who dared to lead 

The sons of men, 
And they who scorned thee In thy time of need, 

Shall bless thee then ! 

Eve Davieson. 



To Young Israel 

LJOW cloudy Is the sky! — 

And thou, thou askest me 
If there's In Heav'n a God, 

A God of Liberty. 
Oh, child, oh, ask me not! 

I couldn't lie. 

How cloudy Is the sky. 
How gloomy Is the world 

But thou, thou art the same 

From land to land though twirled 

Thy lips yet spell the name ; 

"Help, Adonal!" 

Don't listen to thy foes! 

My child, thy aim Is near: 
Thou wlllst not be their prey 

Thy deeds are good and clear 
They are the thistles, they — 

Thou art the rose. 

545 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Don't listen to thy foes! 

Their Saviour was, too 
A son of thine by birth: 

Tell them that He — a Jew — 
Brought them redemption on earth ; 
To heaven he rose. 

Don't be afraid of them, 
They tell the same old lie — 

Thou need'st their children's blood — 
But, child, they vainly try 

To stamp thee in the mud 

'Tis but a flam! 

Don't be afraid of them, 

Jehovah is thy guide; 
Thou, tribe of worthy men, 

Thou'llst be the nation's pride, 

"The world's gem." 

M. OsiAS. 



The Mystic Tie 

'X'HERE is a mystic tie that joins 
"*' The children of the Hebrew race 
In bonds of sympathy and love, 

Which time and change cannot efface. 

When, 'mid the world's abuse and scorn, 
The sons of Israel bravely stood. 

That bond was holier, stronger still — 
Cemented by their martyr's blood. 

And though to-day the Hebrew dwells 
In every clime and every land. 

Yet, joined to that immortal tie, 
A holy brotherhood they stand. 

546 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Go to the North where Polar stars 
Look down on fields of ice and snow; 

Go where, in sunny tropic climes, 
The gentle breezes softly blow. 

Go to the countries of the East — 

Arabia and the Hindoo land ; 
Go where the calm Pacific sweeps 

'Gainst California's golden strand; — 

And there, in reverent tones, is heard 
The sacred cry, always the same, 

"O Israel, hear! Our God is one, 
Blest be for aye His holy name!" 

This is the mystic tie that joins 
The children of the Hebrew race; 

This is the grand and holy bond 

Which time and change cannot efface. 

Max Meyerhardt. 



My Heritage 

A GLORIOUS heritage is mine, 
•** Attained through blood and tears, 
Enhaloed of Light Divine, 

My mission's truth appears ; 
The olden benedictions crown 

The strife of exiled years. 

The noblest heritage is mine. 
That valiant heart may know. 

For annals of my Past enshrine 
Life's boundless depths of woe : 

While Memory's bodv watchword kept 
Great Freedom's light aglow! 

547 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

E'en from the Ghetto's drear abode 
Hope's world-wide message sped, 

'Neath cruel Persecution's load, 
Though brave hearts truly bled ! 

And tyrant scorn in bitter tears. 
Steeped Israel's daily bread. 

The suffering of long ages borne 

With trust of faith sublime, 
Now hail the radiance of the morn, 

As joy-bells sweetly chime ; 
Grant Israel's heritage of Peace, 

Lord ! over Space and Time. 

To all who guard the ancient fane, 

The purpose high and true, 
The inspiration's holiest aim 

Endow with strength anew! 
Keep from the wx)rldliness of strife 

The heart-life of the Jew! 

The glorious heritage is mine! 

The honored name I bear, 
Refulgent with the Light Divine, 

Empowers to Do and Dare! 
To conquer Prejudice and Wrong — 

In victory o'er despair ! 

Cora Wilburn. 



Shema-Yisroel-Adonai-Elohenu 
Adonai-Echod 

r\ GOD of Israel, Lord on high, 

^^ Hear, O hear, thy children cry. 

Like the wave in stormy gale, 

It rises with its mournful wail. 

O'er the land in accents drear. 

It sounds, and murmurs far and near, 

548 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

The Russian with his tyrant hand, 
Augments it in his cruel land. 
His lash and scourge thy chosen race, 
Doth scourge and lash with torments base. 
He hears their hunger's fierce desire. 
With mocking curses and with ire. 
Unclothed and starving they may pine, 
His heart is deaf to race of thine. 
Therefore we pray thee, Israel's God, 
Free thine own, and with thy rod, 
Chastise the tyrant. Let him see. 
That still thy race are one with thee; 
That still thou art our Adonoy, 
And that we worship thee with joy. 

Nathan Bernstein. 



Judaeis Vita Aeterna 

^JOT for our sake, O Lord! 

But for the glory of Thy name, 
The splendor of Thine ancient word. 

The honor of Thy people's fame, 
The promise of the truths that last 

From time unknown in Israel's heart, 
We hold our ancient customs fast — 

We are for aye a folk apart! 
Not for our sake, O Lord! 

But that the world shall see again 
How Judah in her soul can hoard 

The faith that yet shall save all men — 
The faith that in the olden days, 

Beneath the blue Judaean sky, 
Sang loud as now its love and praise 

Unto our God, the Lord Most High! 

Charles N. Lurie, 



549 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



^^The Children of the Pale'^ 

"YJ^HENCE comes this motley, dark-eyed, swarthy 

" crowd, 

Of ah'en children in a London street, 
With laughter and with chatter shrill and loud. 

And hurrying feet? 

From that far land they come whose eagles look 

O'er east and west. Their fathers crossed the waves 

Because they would no longer tamely brook 
The lot of slaves. 

For generations in the gloom they dwelt 
Dark as the sombre forests of the North, 

Till suddenly within their hearts they felt 
The call, ''Come forth!" 

The moss-grown walls of hoary synagogue 

And school, the field of Death than Life more kind, 

The jewelled tables of the Decalogue, 
They left behind. 

But in their hearts, as in the Holiest Place, 
They bore the ark, its manna and its rod, 

The lust of knowledge and the pride of race, 
The awe of God. 

And on their children's faces I behold 

Flashes and gleams, as from some inner shrine. 

Recalling ancient stories proudly told 
Of Israel's line. 

Anonymous. 



550 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



J lid ah 

YY/HILE the tribes of earth yet In the dark- 
"'^ ness groped, 

Ere iron savagery set free, 
O Judah ! had'st thou with science coped 

In law and poesy. 

God's chosen people, thy songs are sung 

In the great w^orld to-day; 
In every clime, in every tongue, 

Thy name shall last for aye! 

Since time began, yea, when the earth 

We're told was very young. 
Fair Judah flourished and gave birth 

To wise men who have sung — 

Psalms wherein human longings bring 

Home to each heart to-day 
The unspoken hope, the desire to cling 

To a Higher Power alway. 

Strong nations rise at last to fall 

Beneath the strokes of Fate; 
But Judah rises like a wall — 

Invincible 'gainst hate. 

Two thousand years have not suflRced, 

Tho' of Fatherland despoiled. 
To destroy the race by all despised, 

Or tarnish a name unsolled. 

George R. Du Bois. 



551 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The Chosen Ones of Israel 

TTHE chosen ones of Israel are scatter'd far and 
* wide ; 

Where flows the lordly Tiber, -where rolls the Atlan- 
tic tide — 
By Danube's winding waters, by Hudson's crystal 

springs, 
Dwell the myriad descendants of the Prophets and the 

Kings, 
Abroad along the valleys are their habitations found — 
They are hunters in the forest, and tillers of the 

ground — 
The rising sun beholds them in torrid realms afar 
And on their broken legions looks down the northern 

star. 
In the old "world's crowded cities, in the prairies of 

the new, 
Unchanged amid all changes, to their faith forever 

true — 
Alike by Niger's fountains and by Niagara's flood 
Still flow, unmix'd, the currents of the grand, heroic 

blood. 
Ye mourn your lasting exile, your temple strewn in 

dust. 
Yet forget not ye the promise of the righteous and 

the just — 
Ye know ye shall be gathered, from every clime and 

shore. 
And be again the chosen of Jehovah evermore, 
FroQi Assyria, Egypt, Elam — from Patmos, Cush, 

Shinar — 
From Hamath, and the Islands of foreign seats afar — 
From all the earth's four corners, where Israel's chil- 
dren roam, 
Shall the dispers'd of Judah throng to their long 

promis'd home. 
And again like some high mountain whose tops are 

crown'd with snow, 

552 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Shall the Temple's thousand turrets in the golden 

sunset glow— 
And again before their altars shall the congregations 

stand, 
On thy plains, O lov'd Jerusalem ! the happy, holy 

land ! 
And it shall come to pass that the remnant in that day, 
Upon the Lord of Hosts above, the great I Am, shall 

stay ; 
And the escap'd of Jacob, from the paths which they 

have trod, 
Shall return to Him that smote them — your fathers' 

mighty God! Park Benjamin. 



The Star of Discontent 

OTHOU, sweet friend, would I might soothe thy 
fear! 
Our night is dark — the little vessel drifts 
Unpiloted, and heedless of its rifts 
The shipmen prank themselves in festal gear. 
And shout that all is well, afar and near, 
What need have ocean-drifters of God's gifts 
Of chart and compass? Lo, as each wind shifts. 
The wandering vessel reels; its plight how drear! 
Brave hearts, despair not; all is not yet lost — 
All is not lost beneath black Northern skies; 
The slumberer awakens, tempest-tost, 
And all his soul in anguish heavenward cries; 
And Hope shines forth in Jewry's firmament — 
One ray of hope — The Star of Disconent. 

X. 

They Call Us Jews 

TTHEY call us Jews. Those men whose family tree 
"*• Springs from a line of noble ancestry. 
Who trace their title to the little band 
That in the Mayflower came to freedom's land ; 

553 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Or those within whose veins doth proudl}^ run 
The blood of men who fought with Washington. 
How weak their proud pretensions are to ours 
Whose pedigree with undiminished powers 
We trace to him who first the truth made known; — 
"The Lord is One. He rules the world alone." 

Yes, we are Jews; — proud scions of the race 

That first enjoyed Jehovah's special grace; 

To w^hom was given in Sinai's synagogue, 

By hand Divine, the glorious decalogue ; 

Whose leader, Moses, formed the wondrous laws 

Which still best serve Humanity's great cause; 

Whose leader, Moses, formed the thoughts and deeds 

That inspiration give to modern creeds; 

Whose people still proclaim through every zone ; — 

"The Lord is One. He rules the world alone." 

Yes, we are Jews. Scourged by relentless hate, 
Our fathers wandered on from state to state; 
Were forced to dwell in narrow Ghetto lanes, 
Were fleeced by torture of their honest gains. 
And though of every privilege deprived, 
The persecuted people grew and thrived. 
The nations might degrade them, might annoy, 
But God-anointed man could not destroy. 
And with our race the shibboleth has grown; 
"The Lord is One. He rules the world alone." 

Yes, we are Jews. The People of the Book, 
Our duty 'tis to search out every nook 
Where evil lurks, w^here ignorance and shame 
Cast undeserved reproach on Israel's name. 
On this Association falls the task 
With pen and precept error to unmask. 
To teach the Gentile world for what we stand, 
To teach the Jew his passions to command. 
To penetrate the homes and spread the light, 
To preach the doctrine of Eternal Right. 

554 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Throughout the hostile world let Israel be 
A synonym of stern morality. 
Then will our prayer ascend to Heaven's throne; 
"The Lord is One. He rules the world alone." 

Milton Goldsmith. 



The Jew^s Appeal to the Christian 

^EASE, Christian, cease the word of scorn, 

On Israel's name, on Judah's race; 
Though lowly, humbled and forlorn, 

He hath no home, no resting place ; 
Deem not the Hebrew's soul so dead, 

So abject, that he cannot know, 
Musing o'er Salem's glory fled. 

The tear of shame, the pang of woe. 

When by the streams of Babylon 

Our captive exiled fathers sate. 
On high their tuneless harps were hung, 

They could not sing — disconsolate 
They mourned their lost Jerusalem, 

Her hallowed scenes of loveliness; 
Their children too can weep with them — 

They cannot sing for heaviness. 

O ! think upon the severed wave. 

Obedient to the Prophet's word ; 
On that dread law Jehovah gave. 

When Sinai trembled with the Lord. 
Forget not those, our favored sires. 

Led through the desert, bondage free, 
By noonday cloud, and midnight fires. 

Their guardian guide the Deity. 

Boast ye of power, of glory won 

By England's warrior chivalry? 
Think, think, of what our sires have done, 

Of Gideon, David, Maccabee, 

555 



I 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

When Judah trod his lofty way, 

Proud, fierce, and free; who then might dare, 
Low crouching on his prostrate prey. 

Rouse the young lion from his lair? 

Vaunt ye of Britain rich and great? 

Her beauties do ye fondly tell? 
Such once was Zion's palmy state, 

Fair were thy tents, O Israel! 
Her merchants were the chiefs of earth, 

Their vessels thronged the Eastern sea; j 

And Salem gloried in the worth 

Of Ophir, Indus, Araby. 

Though changed, alas! not hers the doom, 

Thus ever hopelessly to pine; 
Our father's pitying God shall come, j 

And rear his loved, though wasted, vine, — 
Were this a fond and idle dream. 

Our Prophet's sacred word were vain, 
Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! 

The Beautiful, shall rise again. 

Virgin of Israel! yet once more 

Encircled by the choral throng. 
Thou shalt lead forth the dance, and pour 

To tabret note the merry song: — 
Once more, once more, exultingly, 

From holy Ephraim's mountainward, 
Shall Jacob hear the watchman's cry, 

"Arise, and let us seek the lord!" 

Daughter of Zion! raise the voice! 

Clap the glad hand ! beloved, forgiven. 
The fainting spirit shall rejoice. 

Refreshed, once more, by dews from heaven. 
The land that held the iron rod 

Shall wield the shepherd's crook, and prove 
(Hear it, ye Isles) — that Israel's God 

Hath loved her with a father's love! 

556 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Cease, Christian, cease the word of shame 
On Judah's race — on Israel's name. 

J. W. Blencowe, Jr. 

The Jew to Jesus 

r\ MAN of my own people, I alone 

^^ Among these alien ones can know thy face, 

I who have felt the kinship of our race 

Burn in me as I sit where they intone 

Thy praises, — those who, striving to make known 

A God for sacrifice, have missed the grace 

Of thy sweet human meaning in its place. 

Thou who art of our blood-bond and our own. 

Are we not sharers of thy Passion? Yea, 

In spirit-anguish closely by thy side 

We have drained the bitter cup, and, tortured, felt 

With thee the bruising of each heavy welt. 

In every land Is our Gethsemane. 

A thousand times have we been crucified. 

Florence Kiper Frank. 

Moses and Jesus 

IWIETHOUGHT on two Jews meeting I did 

'^'■* chance — 

One old, stern-eyed, deep-browed ; yet garlanded 

With living light of love around his head ; 

The other young, with sweet, seraphic glance. 

Round them went on the Town's Satanic dance, 

Hunger a-piping while at heart he bled. 

Salom Aleikem mournfully each said, 

Nor eyed the other straight, but looked askance. 

Sudden from Church outroUed an organ hymn. 
From Synagog a loudly chanted air, 
Each with its prophet's high acclaim instinct, 
Then for the first time met their eyes swift-linked 
In one strange, silent, piteous gaze, and dim 
With bitter tears of agonized despair. 

Israel Zangwill. 

557 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Lines to an Anti-Semite 

CTAND! as God saw thee of old time 
^ We see and know thee now; 
The brand of unforgotten crime 

Still black upon thy brow, 
That mark, Eternal Justice traced, 

Thou coverest in vain ; 
Its blighting stigma uneffaced ; 

Where is thy brother, Cain? 

Aye, hypocrite, and if thou wilt, 

White hands, in protest, spread ! 
The blood by coarser murderers spilt 

Was at thy bidding shed. 
Thy speech inflamed each ignorant soul 

With thine own maddening wine; 
And when their fury burst control, 

Their brutal acts were thine. 

For thee the crowded Plaza seethed 

Round Seville's high-built pyre; 
And shrinking forms of women wreathed 

With boiling snakes of fire. 
Thy servants fanned their ardent breath 

Into a fiercer flame; 
And watched, w^ll-pleased, the dallying death, 

That lingered ere it came. 

But thou hast darker secrets yet, 

And deeds more dear to hell. 
The sightless, sounding oubliette 

Hath kept thy counsel well, 
The silent hours that crush the heart. 

The soul-destroying gloom ; 
Thine, devil, was the fiendish art 

Devised that living tomb. 

558 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Woe, woe on the unhappy state 

That learns thy bloody creed, 
And makes her mansion desolate 

Thy cruel lust to feed. 
Before one dread, impartial Bar 

Her sons, shall find ere long. 
How terrfble the helpless are. 

The feeble ones how strong! 

Lo! where the dotard Empress, Spain, 

With loosened necklace stands, 
While those fair jewels, grain by grain, 

Slip from her nerveless hands! 
Unmoved she sees her pearls depart 

And smiles with alien eyes; 
For heavy on her palsied heart 

The curse of Israel lies. 

Foul shark, whose malice never sleeps, 

On noblest victims fed ; 
What swimmer bold shall cleave the deeps 

Thy rivings left so red ; 
And when thy bulk sways up to breathe 

On that encrimsoned tide, 
With one unerring home-thrust sheathe 

His dagger in thy side? 

Edward Sydney Tybee. 



I Would Reply 

TF one should say, "Thou art a Jew, 
■*■ Of race for centuries downtrod !" 
I would reply: "So was he, too, 

Whom you've exalted to your God ! 
Is it a stigma kin to be 
With him who preached in Galilee?" 

559 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

If one should say, "What are the deeds 
The Jew has done !" I would reply : — 

"The corner-stone of modern creeds 
Was laid by him in years gone by. 

He broke the gyves of tyranny 

And taught the world humanity!" 

If one should say, "Thy cult is old !" 
I would reply : "Why, so is Truth ! 

But like the brilliancy of gold 

It still shines with untarnished youth. 

Whatever truths your church may show, 

The Jew professed them long ago." 

Milton Goldsmith. 

''Only a Jew'' 

DATIENT in sorrow, and never repining, 
Bending submissively low to the blast; 
Conscious that Heaven is never designing 

That sickness or sorrow forever should last, 
Striving mid poverty, earnest and active, 

Nerving his efforts, industrious and true. 
Spurning all wrong, howsoever attractive. 

Humble and pious, though "Only a Jew." 

Prosperity crowning his efforts and striving. 

See, Fortune, propitious, his industry bless; 
To comfort and competence, haply arriving. 

Still earnest and active, his energies press. 
Gladly relieving all sorrow and anguish, 

While tears sympathetic his features bedew. 
Where sad ones in poverty and wretchedness languish, 

God's angel on earth — though "Only a Jew." 

Affectionate heart, throbs his bosom, e'er swelling 
For dear ones, who claim his attachment and love; 

An earthly Elysium, his Eden-like dwelling 

(A foretaste on earth of bright heaven above.) 

560 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Obedient his child life, now his children adore him; 

His wife, with affection, does life's joys renew, 
The bright rays of happiness ever shine o'er him, 

As father, as husband, though "Only a Jew." 

Progressive in Science, In Art and in Learning; 

Dispensing their benefits, near and afar — - 
Till grateful, his worth now his country discerning 

He graces in honor the Senate — the Bar — 
Pleading in eloquence 'gainst every oppression ; 

He strives for the "Right," and does baseness pursue, 
Yet "damned with faint praise," he hears envy's ex- 
pression. 

After all, you must own, that he's "Only a Jew." 

His tongue free from evil, his lips from deceiving. 

E'en to those who may spurn him his heart remains 
dumb; 
While sadly their bootless malignity grieving, 

He knows that a time of Redemption will come. 
When shining again in Empyrean splendor. 

The glories of Israel will beam forth anew, 
Thus blessing in Life, does his blessed death render 

A pure soul to God, though he's "Only a Jew." 

P. H. 



Thou Art a Jew 

'X'HOU art a Jew, and all is said 

That need be said, fore'er to bar the way, 
To where doth linger the exclusive ray 

Of social sunshine; here the dead 

And foolish issues of the past 

Are born again, and bigotry appears 
And dares to sit in judgment on his peers, 

A race immortal, ancient, vast. 

561 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Thou art a Jew, and by that name - 

Alone, thou'rt judged; thj^ virtues play no part; 
Thy graces, strength of mind, or depth of heart, 

All lost in the consuming flame 

Of ignorance. Through ej^es of love 

They look not at thee, fearing they may find 
Some merit, toward which they were ever blind; 

Some soul, some grandeur from above. 

Though here and there, a hollow tree 

Doth stand among the mighty tow'ring pines, 
Still is the forest beautiful. And mines 

Of dazzling riches we could see 

If we but delved beneath the clay. 

Below the surface we must seek to find 

True worth, true greatness, and the master mind; 

Beyond the darkness, lingers day. 

The social barrier that stands 

Grim sentinel between the faiths to-day, 
Is prejudice; it knoweth but the way 

Its father, ignorance, demands 

To judge the many by the few. 

Amid the weeds the dainty wild flower grows,, 
Great good 'mid evil often may repose; 

But as for thee, thou art a Jew. 

Thou art a Jew; then let thy ways 

Not dim the lustre of thy fathers' creed. 

Let honor be thy star; thy every deed 
Reflect its brightness on thy days. 
Be faithful, patient, noble, true ; 

Kindness and justice in thy heart abide ; 

Live thus and thou wilt feel a worthy pride 
When it is said, thou art a Jew. 

I. N. L. 



«i62 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Israel 

LJEAR, O Israel, Jehovah, the Lord our God is one, 
But we, Jehovah, His people, are dual and so 
undone. 

Slaves in eternal Egypts, baking their strawless bricks. 
At ease in successive Zions, prating their politics. 

Rotting in sunlit Rumania, pigging in Russian pale, 
Driving in Park, Bois, and Prater, clinging to Fash- 
ion's tail ; 

Reeling before every rowdy, sore with a hundred stings. 
Clothed in fine linen and purple, loved at the courts of 
Kings ; 

Faithful friends to our foemen, slaves to a scornful 

clique, 
The only Christians in Europe, turning the other cheek; 

Priests of the household altar, blessing the bread and 

wine, 
Lords of the hells of Gomorrah, licensed keepers of 

swine ; 

Coughing o'er clattering treadles, saintly and under- 
paid, 

Ousting the rough from Whitechapel — by learning the 
hooligan's trade; 

Pious, fanatical zealots throttled in Talmud-coil, 
Impious, lecherous skeptics, cynical stalkers of spoil ; 

Wedded 'neath Hebrew awning, buried 'neath Hebrew 

sod. 
Between not a dream of duty, never a glimpse of God ; 

563 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Risking our lives for our countries, loving our nations' 

flags, 
Hounded therefrom in repayment, hugging our bloody 

rags; 

Blarneying, shivering, crawling, taking all colors and 

none, 
Lying a fox in the covert, leaping an ape in the sun. 

Tantalus-Proteus of Peoples, security comes from with- 
in; 
Where is the lion of Judah? Wearing an ass's skin! 

Hear, O Israel, Jehovah, the Lord our God is One, 
But we, Jehovah His people, are dual and so undone. 

Israel Zangwill. 

Israel 

l_JOW great, O Israel, have thy sufferings been 

Since doomed in every land and clime to roam, 
An exile and a wanderer on the earth, 
Without a country and without a home! 

Throughout the world men scorned the Hebrew's 
faith — 

That holy creed of origin divine; 
They stamped as crime his sacred, pure belief. 

And mocked his worship at Jehovah's shrine. 

And Israel, once a nation proud and great. 

From whom sprang sages, kings and prophets grand, 

Earth's mightiest race, the chosen of the Lord, 

Was mocked and scorned and jeered in every land ! 

In sunny Spain, the Inquisition dread 
Cast him in dungeons terrible and dire. 

And with a thousand tortures racked his form, 
Then led him forth unto the death of fire. 

564 



I 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Where'er the Hebrew roamed, on land or sea, 

Did persecution follow in his path, 
And furious mobs deemed it a noble act 

To vent on him their hatred and their wrath. 

Ten thousand martyrs died for Israel's cause, 
With fortitude sublime, 'mid smoke and flame ; 

And while their cruel foes stood mocking 'round. 
They called on God and blessed His sacred name! 

Through all the horrors of that fearful time, 

Through gloom and death, the Hebrew saw afar, 

With faith's unfailing and undying eye, 

Beyond the clouds, hope's bright and glorious star. 

He knew that God would rise 'gainst Israel's foes 
As, long ago, upon the Red Sea coast. 

With miracles He save*d His chosen race, 

And in the sea 'whelmed Pharaoh's mighty host. 

And gloriously was that bright trust fulfilled. 
For Israel triumphed over every foe, 

A.nd marching on with undiminished zeal, 
Emerged in triumph from the night of woe. 

Yes, Judah proudly stands, 'midst all mankind. 
Once more as beautiful, sublime, and grand 

As when, in blessed days of old, she stood 
A mighty nation in the Holy Land. 

Weep not, O Israel, for thy martyred ones, 

For though no monuments rise o'er their tombs, 

Yet fame upon the sacred spot shall shed 

Her fairest garlands and her brightest blooms. 

Their names are grav'n on honor's deathless page. 
And on the scroll of glory written high : 

And though earth's proudest monuments decay. 
Their deeds sublime will never, never die! 

565 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Mourn not, O Israel, for the glorious past; 

The future holds a destiny more grand ; 
For 'tis thy mission great to teach God's laws 

To the inhabitants of every land, 

And cause the nations of the world to know 
That unto Him alone shall prayers ascend, 

And that before His great majestic throne 
All men in reverent suppliance shall bend. 

Ah ! may the time soon come when o'er the earth 
In thunder tones the glad acclaim will ring, 

And nations, taking up the shout, shall cry, 
"The God of Judah is our Lord and King!" 

Max Meyerhardt. 



The Jews of England (izqo-IQOZ) 

A N Edward's England spat us out — a band 

"^^ Foredoomed to redden Vistula or Rhine, 
And leaf-like toss with every wind malign, 

All mocked the faith they could not understand. 

Six centuries have passed. The yellow brand 
On shoulder nor on soul has left a sign 
And on our brows must Edward's England twine ^ 

Her civic laurels with an equal hand. \ 

Thick-clustered stars of fierce supremacy 

Upon the martial breast of England glance! 

She seems of War the very Deity. 

Could aught remain her glory to enhance? 

Yea, for I count her noblest victory 
Her triumph o'er her own intolerance. 

Israel Zangwill. 



566 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

The Right of Asylum 

r7-ASY the cry while vengeance now is wrought 
And from his lair the Anarchist is burned. 
"Shut be our harbors, closed be every port 

And from our shore be every alien turned." 
Yet while the clamor and the pursuit is hot 

And public anger public madness breeds, 
Be it not soon nor easily forgot 

That England thus an ancient title cedes. 
For centuries a pillow hath she spread 

For all that widowed goes and wandering 
And in her lap hath laid the unhappy head 

Or broken Statesman and of outcast King. 
Shall she alarmed by that small horde deny 

This old sea-haven to world-misery? 

Stephen Phillips. 



The Jewish Soldier 

V/TOTHER England, Mother England, 'mid the 
^^ ^ thousands 

Far beyond the sea to-day, 
Doing battle for thy honour, for thy glory. 
Is there place for us, a little band of brothers, 
England say? 

Dost thou ask our name and nation. Mother England ? 
We have come from many lands, 
Where the rod of the oppressor bowed and bent us, 
Bade us stand with bated breath and humble gesture, 
Suppliant hands. 

Long ago and far away, O Mother England, 
We were warriors brave and bold, 
But a hundred nations rose in arms against us. 
And the shadow of exile closed o'er those heroes 
Days of old. 

567 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Thou hast given us home and freedom, Mother Eng- 
land, 
Thou hast let us live again 

Free and fearless midst thy free and fearless children, 
Sharing with them, as one people, grief and gladness, 
Joy and pain. 

Now we Jews, we English Jews, O Mother England, 
Ask another boon of thee! 

Let us share with them the danger and the glory, 
Where thy best and bravest lead, there let' us follow 
O'er the sea! 

For the Jew has heart and hand, Mother England, 
And they both are thine to-day — 
Thine for life and thine for death, yea, thine forever! 
Wilt thou take them as we give them, freely, gladly, 
England say! 

Alice Lucas. 

Israel and Columbia 

Q GLORY of an elder age! 

^^ O wonder of time's later days! 

Foremost for aye as priest and sage, 

Ne'er absent from broad history's ways. 
Let us not fail on thee to place 

Some share of our Columbian crown, 
For one of all thy favored race 

Sailed with that fleet from Palos town. 

Prophetic dreams of worlds behind 

The secret of the sundown seas. 
Slept deep in science heart-confined 

From Maneth on to Genoese. 
Well said Isaiah, seer sublime, 

"Surely the isles shall wait for thee. 
And ships of Tarshish bide the time 

When Hebrews face the western sea." 

568 



I 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

The gates of unknown worlds were sealed 

While progress waits the Jewish hand, 
And David's earth possessing shield, 

To lead her to the Promised Land. 
Herculean Pillars vainly rear 

Their frowning ne-plus-ultra bound 
In paths where fiery pillars steer 

The conquest of the planet round. 

Spain drove thee forth from mart and school, 

Princes of commerce, thought, and verse, 
Thine angel led to broader rule 

In lands which laugh at Europe's curse. 
We hear Jah's voice through all thy course, 

"More yet beyond, for thou art mine," 
And with thee dwells the secret force 

That makes the march of man divine. 

For thou art Hebrew — ^Abram's seed — 

The child of him God called His friend, 
And son of Whom the nations read, 

"Thy kingdom hath not bound nor end." 
Yes, Hebrew, man from realms beyond, 

Upreared to lead hope's splendid quest. 
Instinct with powers by ages crowned, 

Restless, thou guidest man to rest. 

So Israel's world-wide moving sons. 

We hail you at each opening gate. 
Through which your flaming promise runs. 

While Jacob's star leads on our fate. 
And more than admiral or crew, 

Whose memory nations now adorn, 
We hail that nameless sailor Jew 

As herald of the New World's morn. 

John J. McCabe. 



569 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



The Jew in America 

\jr/ING thee, my song, and in majestic flight 
Grace with fair melody the words I write ; 
That they, in some not too unworthy strain, 
With pride and plaint, of glory tell and pain; 
Say in what early dawn of history 
High fate enmeshed our footsteps — made us be 
The burdened bearers of a word sublime — 
The portent and the amulet of time. 

For that far vale, the cradle and the grave, — 
Where we behold God and the world He gave, — 
We have come hither for that high word's sake. 
Bound each to each with bonds that naught could 
break. 

The golden thread along the paths we trod 

Gleamed bright from daily contact with our God — 

Through labyrinthine gloom of age on age 

We knew its radiance as our heritage, — 

And though in strange, far lands enforced to roam, 

The broad earth held for us no alien home. 

Spain saw us — Holland — and th' intrepid crew 
Of the famed caravel whose captain knew 
Where sky and ocean melted in the west 
A new world waited for his wondrous quest. 

A new world — with great portals far outflung — 
Holding a hope more sweet than time had sung, 
To which the Jew, of life's high quest a part, 
A pilgrim came, the Torah in his heart. 
Of his endeavor, how he thrived and came 
To give new glory to his ancient name 
And wore as diadem the thread of gold. 
On many a page the chronicler has told. 

570 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

A land of promise, and fulfilment too ; 
Where on a sudden olden dreams came true. 
Man was man's equal — unto every race 
The path was levelled to the highest place. 
Here grew we part of an ennobled state, 
Gave and won honor, sat among the great, 
And saw unfolding to our 'raptured view 
The day long prayed for by the patient Jew. 

Pause thou, my song, that soarest proud and high, 
Pause thou awhile, lest some far-echoed cry 
Reverberating through the caves of time 
Destroy the structure of thy vaulting rhyme. 
A pale cadaver with lack-lustre eyes, 
Touches the harp and stills its melodies. 

Russia, thy name embitters history, 

And in the ages that are yet to be, 

A symbol thou for all the world holds worst — 

Abhorred of heaven, by mankind accursed. 

Prophetic made by frenzy of our grief. 

By miseries that mount beyond belief. 

We thee consign to be the scorn of time. 

Shackled forever to earth's blackest crime. 

The long forefinger of the future years 

Shall point thee out the fountain-head of tears; 

Nor ocean's waters may efface the stain 

Branded in blood on thee — the brand of Cain! 

Fain turns my song unto some fairer note — 
We guard a promise voiced in da^'s remote, 
The words of prophets, and our deathless hope, 
That in dark hours when we despairing grope 
In ever clearer accents shall be heard : 
No tyrant's perfidy may kill God's word. 

Still trembling, in the valley, in the gloom, 
About us frowning rocks strange shapes assume; 
But unto faith that fears nor wreck nor storm 
There dawns a golden day that shall transform 

571 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

These spectres of a long and cruel night 
To ministering friends in new-born light, 
When tried by travail and by fire and rod 
We shall emerge, unchanged, to face our God. 

Felix N. Gerson. 



The Ghetto-Jew 

I MARKED in the midst of the glittering throng 

* A figure all bent and retreating; 

His raiment was shabby, and bearded his face, 

His gaze was bewildering and fleeting; 
And those whose drossiness glared through the gilt 

Guffawed a contemptuous greeting. 

Intently I peered in his time lined face 
And read there his marvellous story; 

His brows w^re large with the wisdom of pain, 
His locks by affliction made hoary; 

A memory lurked in the depth of his eyes, 
A prayer and a vision of glory. 

A mem'ry aglow with the splendors of old, 

A prayer of patience and yearning. 
And a vision of Home that gleamed in the dark, 

Through ages of weary sojourning; 
Yet they of the gilded and glittering throng 

Had naught but derision and spurning. 

He folded a dream to his quivering heart 

And nursed it through vigils of ages; 
He gave it the blood of his life to absorb 

Yet mockery now is his wages. 
Shall this be the word his story to close, 

A jeer be the last of its pages? 

RuFus Learsi. 



572 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

The Melting Pot 

DEARDED old patriarchs, flippant young men, 

'^ Faces from synagogue, tenement, den. 

Native and foreign and Gentile and Jew — 

Faces of every contour and hue — 

Bad faces, good faces, carved-out-of-wood faces. 

Scarred faces, marred faces, tender and hard faces. 

Clusters and bevies of trim little Jewesses, 

Telling what "Abie" or "Ikey" or "Louie" says, 

Beauties from Italy, Russia and France, 

Clad in their gayest of clothes for a dance; 

Hawksters and womenfolk bargaining, bickering. 

Polyglot, clamoring, bartering, dickering 

Under the lights that are flaring and flickering; 

Lovers and criminals, preachers and panderers. 

Lawyers and pawnbrokers, flashy philanderers. 

Every conceivable garb for the viewing — 

Rags that are fluttering, silks all frou-frouing; 

Here shivers misery, near by we have a new 

Modiste's creation as "swell as the Avenue" ; 

Hats up to date and of hoariest lineage! 

Simpering girls at the utterly ninny age. 

Babies in arms and young boys at the skinny age 

Mix in with fat men and beggars a-muttering. 

Where from the pushcarts the peddlers are sputtering 

Praises unending for wares they are vending; 

Furniture, notions and kitchen utensils, 

Suits, furs and underwear, pictures and pencils: 

Stores all ablaze 'mid a babble that's furious — 

Rich people, poor people, quaint folks and curious, 

Painted dames, queens of a doubtful society. 

Folks and more folks In an endless variety. 

Scions of different nations and races 

Coming and going from thousands of places! 

Color and movement and bustle and noise. 

Mothers and fathers and maidens and boys. 

Glad folks and sorrowful, dreary or cheery, 

Beautiful, horrible, lively or wear)^, 

573 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE * 

Loving and hateful and sober and bleary, 
Glitter and grayness and laughter and pain, 
Passing, repassing and passing again. 
Life! — that is all, with its mirth and its toiling. 
Life — like a kettle that's bubbling and boiling, 
Under the glare of the merciless light — 
Heart of the Ghetto on Saturday night! 

Berton Braley. 

A Call to the Builders 

I 

V^E may not rear it now, — though some aver 

The eye of man shall see it where it stood, — 
The glittering House of God, with cedar-wood 
Well builded, and with olive and with fir. 

Cunningly carved with wide-winged cherubim, 
And flowers full-blown, and palm-trees fair and slim. 

The ancient, unforgetting Eastern sky — 
Blue as the sapphire in the breast-plate set. 
That, watching waits, may not behold it yet ; 

Though there be breasts where longing will not 
die ; 
Though still Jerusalem's holy earth be shed, 
Dear symbol, o'er the unalienated dead ! 

n 

Yet unto you, O sons of Israel! 

This year, this day, this hour, and in this land, 
'Tis given to lend with joy the helping hand. 
To rear a mighty Temple builded well, 

Its blocks young souls, unhewn yet by the keen 
Steel of the desecrating world, and clean. 
Bring, bring, bright gold, and melt it in the fire. 
So shall that faithful offering overspread 
A spiritual altar, be ye sure ; 
So to the strength of Israel shall aspire 

From lamps of many branches flamelets pure. 
The light of lives with oil of knowledge fed! 

Helen Gray Cone. 

574 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

O Long the Way 

r\ LONG the way and short the day, 
^^^ No light in tower or town, 
The waters roar and far the shore, 
My ship, my ship goes down. 

'Tis all in vain to strive again, 

My cry the billows drown, 
The fight is done, the wind has won — 

My ship, my ship goes down. 

Bid sun adieu! Thou'lt shine anew, 

When skies no longer frown, 
But I — the deafening billows crash — 

My ship, my ship goes down. 

Morris Rosenfeld. 



The Candle Seller 

TN Hester Street, hard by a telegraph post 

There sits a poor woman as wan as a ghost. 
Her pale face is shrunk, like the face of the dead 
And yet you can tell that her cheeks once were red. 
But love, ease and friendship and glory, I ween, 
May hardly the cause of their fading have been. 
Poor soul, she has wept so, she scarcely can see, 
A skeleton infant she holds on her knee. 
It tugs at her breast, and it whimpers and sleeps. 
But soon at her cry It awakens and weeps: 
"Two cents my good woman, three candles will buy, 
As bright as their flame be my star in the sky!" 
Tho' few are her wares, and her basket is small 
She earns her own living by these, when at all. 
She's there with her baby in wind and in rain, 
In frost and in snow-fall, in weakness and pain ; 
She trades and she trades, through the good times and 
slack, 

575 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

No home and no food, and no cloak to her back; 

She's kirthless and kinless — one friend at the most 

And that one is silent : the telegraph post ! 

She asks for no alms, the poor Jewess, but still 

Altho' she is wretched, forsaken and ill 

She cries Sabbath candles to those who come nigh 

And all that she pleads is, that people will buy. 

To honor the sweet Sabbath, each one 

With joy in his heart to the market has gone 

To shops and to pushcarts they hurriedly go 

But who for the poor wretched woman will care? 

A few of her candles you think they will take. 

They seek the meat patties, the fish and the cake. 

She holds forth a hand with a pitiful cry; 

"Two cents, my good woman, three candles will buy!" 

But no one has listened, and no one has heard ; 

Her voice is so weak, that it fails at each word. 

Perchance the poor mite in her lap understood, 

She hears mother's crying — but w^here.is the good? 

I pray you, how long will she sit there and cry 
Her candles so feebly to all that pass by? 
How long will it be, do you think, ere her breath 
Gives out in the horrible struggle with Death? 
How long will this frail one in mother-love strong 
Give suck to the babe at her breast? Oh, how long? 
The child mother's tears used to swallow before, 
But mother's eyes, nowadays, shed them no more. 
Oh, dry are the eyes now, and empty the brain. 
The heart well-nigh broken, the breath drawn with 

pain. 
Yet ever, tho' faintly, she calls out anew; 
"Oh buy but two candles, good woman but two!" 

In Hester Street stands on the pavement of stone, 
A small orphaned basket, forsaken, alone. 
Besides it is sitting a corpse, cold and stark, 
The seller of candles — will nobody mark? 
No, none of the passers have noticed her yet, 

576 



1 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

The rich ones on feasting are busily set, 
And such as are pious, you well may believe 
Have no time to spare on the gay Sabbath eve. 
So no one had noticed and no one has seen, 
And now comes the night-fall and with it serene. 
The Princess, the Sabbath, from Heaven descends, 
And all the gay throng to the synagogue wends. 
Within where they pray, all is cleanly and bright; 
The cantor sings sweetly, they list with delight. 
But why in a drearfi stands the tall chandelier. 
As dim as the candles that gleam round a bier? 
The candles belonged to the woman you know 
Who died in the street but a short time ago. 
The rich and the pious have brought them tonight 
For mother and child they have set them alight. 
The rich and the pious their duty have done, 
Her tapers are lighted who died all alone. 
The rich and the pious are nobly behaved : 
A body — what matters? But souls must be saved! 

O synagogue lights, be ye witnesses bold. 

That mother and child died of hunger and cold 

Where millions are squandered in idle display; 

That men all unheeded, must starve by the way. 

Then hold back your flame, blessed lights hold it fast! 

The great day of judgment will come at last. 

Before the white throne, where imposture is vain, 

Ye lights for the soul, ye'U be lighted again ! 

And upward your flame there shall mount as on wings. 

And damn the existing false order of things. 

Morris Rosenfeld. 



The Jewish May 

IV^AY has come from out the showers, 

Sun and splendor in her train. 
-All the grasses and the flowers 
Waken up to life again. 

577 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Once again the leaves do show 
And the meadow's blossoms blow, 
Once again through hills and dales 
Rise the songs of nightingales. 

Wheresoe'er on field and hillside, 

With her paint-brush Spring is seen 
In the valley, by the rillside, 

All the earth is decked with green. 
Once again the sun beguiles — 
Moves the drowsy world to smiles. 
See ! the sun with mother-kiss 
Wakes her child to joy and bliss. 

Now each human feeling presses 

Flower like, upward to the sun, 
Softly through the heart's recesses 

Steal sweet fancies one by one. 
Golden dreams their wings outshaking 
Now are making 
Realms celestial 

All of azure 
New life waking 

Bringing treasure 

Out of measure 

For the soul's delight and pleasure. 
. WTio then, tell me, old and sad, 

Nears us with a heavy tread 
On the sward in verdure clad, 
Lonely is the strange newcomer; 

Wearily he walks and slow, 
His sweet springtime and his summer 

Faded long and long ago. 

Say, who is it yonder walks 

Past the hedgerows decked anew, 

While a fearful spectre stalks 

By his side thy woodland through — 

'Tis our ancient friend the Jew! 

578 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

No sweet fancies hover round him, 
Naught but terror and distress; 

Wounds unhealed 

Where lie revealed 
Ghosts of former recollections, 
Corpses, corpses, old affections, 
Buried youth and happiness. 

Bier and blossom bow to meet him 

In derision round his path; 
Gloomily the hemlocks greet him 

And the crow screams out in wrath. 
Strange the birds and strange the flowers. 

Strange the sunshine seems and dim. 
Folk on earth and heavenly powers! — 

Lo, the May is strange to him. 

Little flowers, it were meeter. 

If ye made not quite so bold ; 
Sweet ye are, but oh, far sweeter 

Knew he in the days of old. 
Oranges by thousands blowing 

Filled his groves on either hand, 
All the plants were God's own sowing 

In his far-off happy land. 

Ask the cedars on the mountain, 

Ask them for they know him well! 
Myrtles green by Sharon's fountain 

In whose shade he loved to dwell. 
Ask the Mount of Olives beauteous, — 

Ev'ry tree by ev'ry stream, 
One and all will answer duteous 

For the fair and ancient dream. 

O'er the desert and the pleasance 

Gales of Eden softly blew, 
And the Lord His loving Presence 

Evermore declared anew. 

579 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Angel children at their leisure, 

Played in thousands round His tent 

Countless thoughts of joy and pleasure 
Go to His beloved sent. 

There In bygone days and olden 
From a wonderous harp and golden 
Charmed he music spirit-haunting, 
Holy, chaste and soul-enchanting; 
Never with the ancient sweetness. 
Never In Its old completeness 
Shall It sound ; his dream is ended 
On a willow bough suspended. 

Gone that dream so fair and fleeting! 

Yet behold ; thou dreamst anew ; 
Hark a new May gives thee greeting 

From afar. Dost hear it Jew ? 
Weep no more, although with sorrows 

Bow'd e'en to the grave; I see 
Happier years and brighter morrows 

Dawning, Israel, for thee! 
Hear'st thou not the promise ring 
Where, like doves on silvery wing, 
Thronging cherubs sweetly sing, 
New made songs of what shall be? 

Hark! your olives shall be shaken 

And your citrons and your limes 
Filled with fragrance. God shall waken, 

Lead you as In olden times; 
In the pastures by the river 

Ye once more your flocks shall tend, 
Ye shall live and live forever 

Happy lives that know no end. 
No more wandering, no more sadness; 

Peace shall be your lot and still. 
Hero hearts shall throb with gladness 

'Neath Moriah's silent hill. 

580 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Nevermore of dread affliction 

Or oppression need ye tell, 
Filled with joy and benediction 

In the old home ye shall dwell. 
To the fatherland returning 

Following the homeward path, 
Ye shall find the embers burning 

Still upon the ruined hearth! 

Morris Rosenfeld. 



^^The Light in the Eyes'' 

The light of the eyes rejoiceth the heart — Proverbs 
XV, 30. ^ 

And mine heart walked after m.ine eyes — Job xxxi, 7. 

A S down the age he shambles, gaunt and gray, 
^^ With sorry gait, nor one to bid him stay, 
We mark what man to brother man may do. 
The shrivelled skin, the Ghetto-gotten hue. 
Time's Tragedy writ large upon his face 
The old, world-weary epic of his race ; 
— Yet see, he lifts his head and we surprise 
Some strange swift light of laughter in his eyes. 

On shoulders still the burden and the smart, 
While Hope fights hard to live in Jewish heart. 
Yet not for him the Bitterness and Gall 
Though Grief stalk with him to the Wailing Wall, 
Give him a crumb of joy, and, boyish-wise. 
There leaps the light of laughter to his eyes. 

The crying of wild voices in the night. 

The curses and the struggle and the flight. 

The Bloody Hand of Spain, the Cossack's breath, 

The Sacrifice at York, the Dance to Death ; 

As fiend hath done so fiend will still devise, 

— Through all persists brave laughter — light in eyes. 

581 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

His mirth, sometimes, hath ghastly hollow ring, 

Elijah-like its grim, ironic fling, 

The hate-engendered jest betrays its heat 

Nor can the pulse forever calmly beat ; 

But ling'ring 'neath the fire we may surmise 

Warm light of loving laughter in his eyes. 

Come to the pious purlieus of his home. 

Here Love hath wed with Laughter, door to dome, 

The troubles that beset the tiny brood 

Respective, vanish 'fore that bantering mood. 

What of travail, what of self-sacrifice 

If Laughter-light live long in little eyes? 

From Hebron's rill the music long hath ceased, 
The Temple m.oulders in the solemn East, 
Yet from Siloa's depth men still may drink 
Two draughts Israel of old quaffed from its brink — 
The heart-j^oung love of life that never dies, 
The limpid light of laughter in the eyes! 

As down the age he shambles, grimed and gray, 

With falt'ring gait, and few to bid him stay. 

We mark what man hath done to man, the Jew, 

The shrunken shape, the dark-begotten hue; 

The burden of his snatch of sorry song, 

"How long, O Lord," — the plaint — ''O Lord, how 

long?" 
Yet wait! — nor woe nor wail shall e'er disguise 
Some sure, soft light of laughter in his eyes. 

QSCAR LOEB, 



^^Yes^ He's a Jew'* 

^'"Y'ES, he's a Jew" — and then jou shook your head 
As though the worst of all had just been said ; 
As though that word expressed the height of crime, 
The depth of shame, the lowest moral slime. 

582 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Yet, M^hen you use that term reproach to cast 
You show your ignorance of what the past 
To student eyes reveals; how Moses led 
In safety through the desert them that fled 
From Egypt's bondage; how he planned the laws 
That after ages hailed with loud applause 
To guide the race in whom no power subdued 
Their loyalty to God ; aye, from that brood — 
That storm-tossed people, oft enslaved in chains, 
Have sprung a line of men, in arms and brains 
The peers of any — white, or black, or brown ; 
Whose deeds in camp or court e'er w^on renown. 
When Celt, or Gaul, and Saxon chased the deer, 
And slew their prey with simple bow and spear. 
And dwelt in holes in hillsides, like the lairs 
Of prowling beasts, and naught of fame was theirs, 
The Jew in Orient lands had read the stars. 
Had loved with Venus, and had fought with Mars 
Had w^on with voice and sword the crown of fame. 
In field and forum earned an honored name. 
And when the Celt and Saxon ruled the world. 
And the blue smoke from peaceful chimneys curled, 
Beside the generation that was new 
There walked the scion of the ancient Jew. 
When foes harassed and threatened Britain Great 
A Jew's hand 'twas ihat steered the ship of State, 
And when the bugle sounded war's alarm 
And myriad men from factory and farm 
Took up the sword to keep this Nation whole, 
The names of loyal Jews were on the roll. 
"Yes ; he's a Jew," O pigmy of a clan 
What say you when 'tis said "Yes, he's a Man"? 
Does not that statement cover all the test 
That can of any mortal be expressed ? 
Hark you — you simple-headed bigot hear 
A whispered caution in your dullard ear: 
Do you know that Christ, of whom you sue 
Forgiveness, was a persecuted Jew? 

John Paul Cosgrave, 

583 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The Jew to the Gentile 

'T'HE priest bent angry gaze upon the Jew, 
■^ "What base ingratitude. Shame, shame that you 
Who love the Father, should deny His Son. 
Christ, Jesus, is Divine, w^ith God is one. 
His coming was foretold. His glorious birth, 
A miracle, His gentle life on earth. 

An Inspiration and His body bled 

For us, that through His death our souls be led 

To God. He died for us. Oh, stiff-necked race. 

Forever shall the glory of God's face 

Be turned from you. Christ is the Lord. Take heed. 

Confess Him and from all your sins be freed." 

And swift the Jew replied : " 'Christ Is the Lord !' 
You forced upon the world with rack and sword. 
Your sins are legion. Oh, the awful moan 
Of babes and mothers, maids and men and youth 
Who died because they dared refuse the truth 
You claimed. For these things how can you atone. 
How ease your burdened conscience, how forget 
The needless misery you caused? 

"And yet 
Although you maimed us with the scourge and flame 
And tortured and reviled us 'in His name' ; 
We reach our arms In friendliness to you 
And plead for peace. We are God's children, too. 
Have known the love and mercy in the Face 
He turned to us, His priests and chosen race, 
'Acknowledge Christ,' j^ou say, 'and save your soul. 
Confess our creed. This Is the only toll 
Required to enter heaven and from sin 
Be freed.' 'Serve thou no other God but Me 
And love your fellowmen.' This is our key 
To life. We love the Father, He is One. 
We need no mediator. 'Christ, the Son,' 

584 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Was but God's child like all of us. His kin, 

The atheist, agnostic, Jew and Turk 

And Christian. And his equal, all who shirk 

No sacrifice for fellowmen. Some may 

Not hold like creed with you. For one will say 

He worships Reason. One doubts Christ is King. 

One calls God, allah. Does that matter? Fling 

Afar your doctrine. Cast aside your fears. 

Seek out the weeping ones and dry their tears. 

The sick, the halt, the sinner and the blind. 

Oh, pity them and love them and be kind. 

For, after all, the helpful human deed 

By Christian, Turk or Jew to one in need 

Can bring more souls to God than all man's creed." 

Sara Messing Stern. 



The Yellow Badge 

LJUNDREDS of years agone, my brothers, 
''■ "*' And yet not so long ago. 
They bound on our arms a yellow shame 
The seal of their scorn for us of the Name, 
And laughed at our deep-sunk woe. 

Hundreds of years are past my brothers. 
And the world sweeps on to its goal ; 
We walk the streets with a master's tread 
And the fear we lived in is long since dead, 
But the badge we wear in our soul. 

Aye, the centuries long of cringing, brothers. 

Lest worse than the fear might fall, 
Have broken the back of our freeman's pride 
And the terror of those who were cursed, and died 
Lives on in us one and all. 

What could they do of old, my brothers? 
They killed us like sheep and then? 

585 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

We waited for death in an ecstasjs 
As the unfelt pang that should set us free, 
And give us our life again. 

Ah! We live easily now, my brothers, 

A snug, complacent crew 
With wealth and culture at our command 
And the friendly glance and the outstretched hand 

Of those who mocked us and slew. 

And we walk warily now, my brothers, 

With an eye cast round to view 
Lest the Past that is in us may lift its head, 
Betray to the world we love and dread, 

"Behold ! This is a Jew." 

We must love with the tirries, we say, my brothers, 

And the times are broad and free, 
We too belong to the Brotherhood 
We shout, lest it be not understood: 

''Liberal Jews" are we. 

Liberal minds, indeed, my brothers, 

Hating with petty hate 
Each other, our past, and the names we bear. 
Quarreling meanly to snatch our share 

Of the gold that we think makes great. 

O God, the yellow badge, my brothers, 

Is graven on Israel's heart; 
And we render our language, our symbols, our songs. 
Our honor, our martyrs, aye, even our wrongs 

For a smile on our neighbour's part. 

In our Father's name arise, my brothers. 
Let us tear the shame from our souls. 
We shall rend ourselves and the wounds will bleed 
But the hurt and blood are our right and meed ; 
They will heal us and make us whole. 

586 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Let us turn our eyes to the East, my brothers, 

Where under the sunshine lies 
The land that is ours in every sod, 
The gift of the King, our fathers' God, 

To His children and allies. 

Then will we live and work, my brothers, 

And cleanse away our stain. 
The ignoble and base forgot 
With the daily frettings of scheme and plot, 

We shall stand upright again. 

Come, ere it be too late, my brothers, 
And our just doom strikes us down, 

And naught remain but a pinch of dust, 

A flash of gold and a sword a-rust. 
Of the people God called His Crown. 

Ruth Schechter Alexander. 



A Tribute to the Jews 

CINCE Terah's son from Chaldea went, 
*^ On Manfred's plains to spread his tent. 
The Jewish race In every age 
Illumines the historic page. 

In ages dim, long past and gone. 
The Hebrew warrior victories won, 
Ere Priam's son In battle stood. 
Or Roman soldier shed his blood. 

The ancient Seer, In dreamy trance, 
The past had seen In mystic glance. 
And In the flaming bush had heard 
The voice of God — Almighty's word. 
On Sinai's mount^ 'mid thunders loud, 
From cavern dark, and curtaining cloud 

587 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Mysterious voices to him came 
In which he heard Jehovah's name; 
And in the clefted rock he saw 
The Spirit of Eternal Law. 

The history of this people old, 
By poet writ and prophet told, 
Gives pictures grand of highest thought, 
From realms of inspiration caught; 
Whether writ with pen of living fire, 
Or told in words of burning ire; 
Whether an Isaiah sternly w^arns, 
Or Jeremiah weeping mourns; 

Whether Daniel warning gives to kings 
Or the lone captive sadly sings 
Beneath the willow trees upon 
The streams that flow by Babylon ; 
Whether David sings a hymn of praise, 
Or Job laments his darkened days; 
They all, in lofty numbers tell 
Of thoughts sublime, that only dwell 
In minds inspired by living beams 
That wake to life the poet's dreams. 

Dark was the day, and sad the hour, 
When Judea passed to Roman power! 
Her old men sighed, her maidens wept, 
When havoc o'er Jerusalem swept ; 
And smouldering ruins, stained with blood, 
Told where her sacred Temple stood. 

And darker still, in after time, 
When scattered far, in every clime. 
Against her wandering children rose 
The persecuting hand of foes. 
Inspired by blind, malignant hate. 
Which centuries long did not abate. 
Which still in this enlightened day, 
Has not entirely passed away; 

588 



I 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

And, yet for all, though scattered wide 
On every shore where rolls the tide, 
Her children e'er preserved the name 
That told from whence their fathers came; 
And worshipped still the Great Unknown, 
As to the ancient Patriarch shown. 

The gloomy ages testify 

To what they did in times gone by, 

In learned science, and the part 

They acted in the realms of art, 

While wandering o'er the face of earth. 

Far from the land that gave them birth. 

The student of historic lore, 
As slow he turns the pages o'er, 
Upon its musty leaves will see- 
Semitic names of high degree ; 
In many a dim and blotted line. 
The Maccabeean warriors shine. 
And bright and lustrous, too, he sees 
The name of famed Maimonides. 

And modern times bear witness, too. 

To what the sons of Israel do — 

Disraeli fills a shining place 

In the history of the Saxon race ; 

And Benjamin high honors won 

In the Senate Halls of Washington ; 

Montefiore long will stand 

An honored name in every land ; 

The Baron Hirsch long, long will be 

Remembered by humanity; 

While now, to-day, the Bernhardt's name 

Is clothed in histrionic fame ! 

While, though the Jews no country claim. 
And, as a nation, have no name. 
They still retain, where'er they be, 
Their ancient skill and energy ; 

589 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And whereso'er on earth they live 
Obedience to the laws they give, 
And merit well an honored place 
'Mong children of a foreign race. 

The Christ, who gave the Christians name, 
And a redeeming Saviour came 
To the transgressing sons of earth, 
Was of an humble Jewish birth; 
And, furthermore, the sacred book, 
From which their creeds the Christians took, 
And on whose truths their faith they base, 
Sprang from the ancient Jewish race. 

Then honored be that glorious race, 
Whose genius still on earth finds place, 
While classic Greece has passed away. 
And Rome has lost her ancient sway ; 
And shame on him who would withhold 
The credit due this people old. 
Whoe'er have played such active part 
In science, literature and art. 

RuFus C. Hopkins. 



At Ellis Island 

A CROSS the land their long lines pass; 
^^ More souls come to us sun by sun — 
Each ship a city as she rides, — 

Than manned the march of Washington. 

From ancient States where burdens lie 

Extortionate upon the poor. 
Men rise like flocks from leafless woods. 

Their flight a shadow at our door. 

A shadow passing life by life, 

Into the morrow of our race; 
What know we of the unseen minds? 

These hands are riches, we embrace. 

590 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

What common thought so manj^ moves! 

Our laws with Liberty are brave; 
Beneath them men will take content 

A wage, a lodging, and a grave. 

Strange to each other as to us, 
The races of the .world are ours; 

No sleepless frontiers here impede 
A secret ballot's sacred powers. 

Ye patient aliens! Sifting in 

Where trades a fateful welcome burn 

Bequeath your children what 3^ou find — 
A land to which all peoples turn. 

Margaret Chanler Aldrich. 

Kllis Island 

HTHREE thousand miles of Atlantic seas and a throb 
''• that cuts the top, 
The rushed four-funneled fleeting ship, that, without 

curb or stop, 
Hurls on, while Earth ten times rolls round till, under 

morning stars, 
She breasts the mist of a continent and slows at the 

groaning bars! 

And lo, three-layered Humanity in her steerage bunks 

asleep. 
Rising at dawn and crowding aft, and in the infinite 

sweep 
Of gray — the sea, the sky, — see dim, dream greatened 

and gigantic, 
America, America, uprisen from the Atlantic! 

Swift on dead centuries of faces a sun flames, ere the 
Sun 

Blows the blue bubble of the heavens vast — yea, flam- 
ing one by one, 

" 591 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

These faces are a psalm to God — a morning hymn — the 

sea, 
The sky, the land are a living Temple with a thousand 

Souls set free. 

Swing them the uplifted, crowded people in transport 
to our Isle — 

Morning with strong sun and sweet gales and the Bay's 
yeasty mile, 

Like hands holds forth a glorious Cit)'^ — her smoke's 
sky-swimming shoals, 

Her flight of cliffs, her range of peaks all honey- 
combed with Souls! 

O, come through the Ellis Island Gates — O rush the 

sweet routine, 
Sweep to new birth on a planet new — for lo, at the 

wire screen 
Of the waiting cage, the American clutch — yea, as 

starved people stare, 
Watching your alien faces pass to see if one be there. 

Yonder old trembling man three hours has stood! 

Through* the shuffling crowd 
A pink-shawled withered old woman shambles over 

her baggage bowed ; 
He pales; he cries her name; she bursts into his arms; 

the years 
Melt back into the glory of youth, still seen through 

blinding tears. 

Old Woman — strong girls, swart men, soft babes — 

you hordes across seas hurled, 
O pioneers, as one dares Death, you dare a great new 

World ! 
You bring strong blood, and Faith, and Love, stout 

hearts and homely traits — 
What shall our country do with you — deal out what 

Dooms, what Fates? 

592 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Shall we judge by your alien ways, and lose the gifts 

that are all our own? 
Or shall we rise to grander heights than Earth has 

ever known ? 
Yea, shall we seize on you with love, far-building on 

our trust? 
Are we great enough to swing to God what Europe 

trailed in dust? 

O our America, O Mother, great have you been, our 

hearts 
Are yours, our faith and love are yours— great are 

your trades and arts, 
Your Men — fail not! Earth looks to you, her vast 

Experiment Station, 
To test if souls may be borne to God in the arms of a 

Mother-Nation ! 

Shun not the Mission ! Fearless, fearless mother, 

Earth's mightiest race — 
Yea, seize your flashing stars and stripes and stamp 

across the face 
That word, the strongest in our tongue, that sums the 

skies deep-starred. 
The grain of sand, the Earth, the Soul, our country — 

the word "God!" 

James Oppenheim. 

At the Gate 

T^HEY drive me out of my country, 
•*■ They thrust me out of my land, ^ 

They call me an alien — I 

Who had fought in the foreign band. 

On the ice of the Amur River, 

I and the starving few. 
And my country paid me with curses 

And called me an alien Jew. 

593 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

They worship the Jew In the churches, 
They murder the Jew in the street; 

He taught them to love and to pity, 
His kindred, they murder and beat. 

His name they honor and glory, 

His teachings they rarely do; 
He Cometh ! The Russian will mock Him — 

He, too, was an alien Jew. 

How long! Oh, how long! is the wailing 
Till Russia is judged at Thy bar — 

With Egypt and Spain and with Asshur 
Till Russia shall stand where they are? 

See, the finger of God is writing. 

Blasting the murdering crew ; 
See, the Pole and the Finn and the Cossack 

And the God of the alien Jew. 

They drive me out of my country. 

To a foreign land I go; 
They trained me to be a soldier. 

They teach me to be their foe. 

Their training will go with their teaching — 
This tongue of mine speaks true ; 

When the foes are crowding upon her 
They'll be led by the alien Jew. 

Nathan F. Spielvogel. 



The Magic Words 

HTHE scene of conflict was a level plain 
■*■ That lay among the stretching hills of Spain, 
And on the sand that glistened in the sun, 
Ten thousand lay, whose hours of life had run. 

594 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

'Till noonday's heat, from earliest sign of dawn, 
The battling forces were in combat drawn, 
And ere the sun sank in the silent West, 
A host of men had found eternal rest. 

Behind the battle-field, beneath a tent, 

A soldier lay, on death his vision bent, 

A kindly Priest, that spoke of God, was near, 

A Doctor, he was there, but full of fear. 

Each was a Jew, had each a Hebrew's zeal. 
But neither dared his name or race reveal. 
But death had robbed them of their mortal fears. 
Here in his shadow they could spend their tears. 

"Shemang Yisrael," the dying soldier breathed, 
His face, in death, with smiles all wreathed. 
"Adonai Elohenoo," said piously the man of God ; 
The Doctor murmured, ''Adonai Echod." 

The Priest reached out, and grasped the Doctor's hand, 
These magic words had forged a mighty band. 
And then upon the Doctor's bosom lay his head. 
And wept. The soldier now, alas! was dead. 

Melvin G. Winstock. 



Shema Yisrael Adonay-Elohainu 
Adonay-Echod 

«C HEMA YISRAEL," is the lesson we learn 

In the earliest days of our youth. 
''Adonay Elohainu," the Lord is our God, 
How precious and blessed this truth! 
"It never can fail ; 
Shema Yisrael!" 

595 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

"Adonay Elohainu," this is our God 

And ours forever shall be. 
Through life he will bless us, in death be our guide 
Till "Shalom" — 'Teace eternal" — we see. 
Through Him we prevail; 
"Shema Yisrael!" 

"Shema Yisrael," 'tis our mission alone, 

"Adonay Echod" to proclaim 
The Lord everlasting shall reign o'er the earth 
And "One" be forever His name. 
The future we hail; 
"Shema Yisrael!" 

Ibbie McColm Wilson. 



Be Thou a Jew 

DE thou a Jew! Let oppressors scoff 

And jeer who will. But be thou steadfast, 
And thy firm faith shall be to thee a shield, 
Impenetrable and invincible, 
Against thine enemies. 

Be thou a Jew! 
Thy people are the Chosen Ones, for God 
Will ever champion the cause of Right; 
And though storms of adversity compel 
Thy faith to waver, hold thy grasp — 
For brighter, better days are yet to come. 

Samuel E. Loveman. 



The Chosen 

/^HOSEN of old, the guardians of the Law 

(God's word to mortals, cleaving right from 
wrong) ; 
Destined to serve the world ; its priestly race 
Kept for that service strong. 

596 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Guarded of God through war and wilderness ; 

Holding the truth no other people saw; 
First of the nations to declare Him One'; 

First to revere His Law! 

Down from the ages of triumphant rule, 
Through the lost glory of a line of kings, 

Bruised and lamenting in their brokenness — 
God heard their murmurings. 

Scoffed at, they held their peace and overcame, 
Crowded by hate into the Ghetto's pale, 

Sounded to Heaven their deathless harmony, 
Born of a people's wail. 

Wide through the world that grief-born music rang, 
Hailed with a reverence to themselv-es denied ; 

Caged in the wall by tyrants built, they sang, 
Flinging their genius wide. 

Out of the prisons of the Middle Age, 

Out of the reeking slums, they gave the light; 

Thinkers of lofty thought, ordained of God, 
Prophets to point the right. 

By their unfetterable dreams of youth. 

Joined to the genius that their race imbues, 

Chains have been sundered till to-day remain 
Few barriers round the Jews. 

History emblazons them in bondage great. 

Splendid in art, philosophy and song. 
Now in awed wonder does the world await 

The freedom of the strong. 

Elizabeth McMurtrie Dinwiddie. 



597 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

God's Chosen People 

IN the sadness of your eyes 
"'■ I see the grief of ages ; 

Your voices throb 

With the sob 
Of hearts forever still. 
Yet yours the soul of sages — 

You are alive, 

Tho' nations strive 
Your cup of pain to fill: 

Yet you call yourselves God's Chosen People, 
Yet you humbly bow to God's Great Will. 

In your tills j^ou hoard your gold, 
In dread of gloomy morrow; 

In fear of fire, 

Tyrant's ire, 
And sword of those who spill 
Your blood, and bring you sorrow! 

A hunted race. 

Fell fate you face. 
When foes are out to kill: 

Yet you call yourselves God's Chosen People, 
Yet you huTjjbly bow to God's Great Will. 

On this soil of Man's free rights, 
I would not have your riches! 

Your pomp and pride. 

None can bide. 
Your wives in flounce and frill. 
Their Eastern charm bewitches . . . 

And yet my breast, 

Remains at rest, 
Nor does with envy thrill: 

But oh! teach me your faith, you strange people, 
Teach me to humbly how to God's Great Will. 

Adapted by Joel Blau, 
598 



( 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Our Password 

\TO hate can stifle our religion's birth, 

"*• ^ This gift eternal, like the stars that shine 

Point heavenwards, yet light each clod of earth, 

Our footsteps press, when care and sorrow line 
The groping paths of life; our souls shall knead 

The visions of the past, the day's desire, 
And all that beautifies our simple creed 

In one eternal, and ethereal fire! 
The flame that vivifies the Jewish race, 

That consecrates the joys of common life. 
Which time's corrosive touch can ne'er efface, 

The boon in toil, the sweetness in the strife. 
The truth that animates like Heaven's sun. 
Our prayer in life and death that God is One. 

Isidore G. Ascher, 

Only a Jew 

^OBODY cares, for he's only a Jew, 

Crush him with vengeance in sight of the cross ! 
All of his allies are feeble and few, 
Vice is his jewel and virtue his dross. 

Only a Jew, like the prophets of yore, 

Bearing with patience his burdens and wrongs; 
Leader of liberty, maker of law, 

Singing with David the sweetest of songs. 

Only a Jew, with his epics and art, 
Charming the ages with music divine; 

Ravage his fireside and shiver his heart, 

'Till he partakes of the bread and the wine. 

Only a Jew — like the loved Nazarene, 

Full of forgiveness and pity for all ; 
Giving them alms with a hand that's unseen. 

Lifting the weak when they totter and fall. 

599 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Only a Jew in the reign of thought, 

Winning his way in the ranks of the great; 

Marvels of beauty his genius has wrought, 
Cannot be blighted by passion or hate. 

David Banks Sickles. 



J ew 



CILENT and wise and changeless, 
^ Stamped with the Orient still ; 
In many a country nameless — 
In every land a Will. 

Master of two things is he, 

Self, and the Power of Gold. 
He thinks — the World is busy ; 

They bargain — he has sold ! 

Lord of the Marts of Nations 

Where the World's wide commerce plies — 
Master of infinite Patience, 

Slandered by infinite Lies! 

Towering, fair-haired Norseman, 

Tartar at Novgorod, 
Black-eyed Arab horseman 

Zulu chief unshod — 

All borrow for War or trading 
And promise with oaths not new; 

All turn, with the danger fading, 
And sneer at the lender — "Jew!" 

George Vaux Bacon. 



600 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Recognition 

CO— you have "recognized" the Jew? 

*^ Then — just perchance — you may have noticed, too, 

And "recognized" the hills that pierce the sky 

And hold their heads in pure, star-studded blue, 

Whose heights command your plains w^hich dully lie, 

And dare not dream. You "recognized," perhaps, 

The dark, thick shade of forests, geons old ; 

The mellow^ splendor of the moon that wraps 

The night in glory, and the ruddy gold 

That lies deep hidden in the pregnant earth 

Perhaps you "recognize." The liquid mirth 

And tender passion of a mountain stream 

You "recognize" ; the potence of a dream 

May still be "recognized" — w^ho knows? — by you. 

Since, wisely, now you "recognize" the Jew. 

Miriam Teichner. 



r 



Is It True? 

C AID the child of the bright yellow hair 
^ To the child of the coal black curls; 
"I do not think it is fair 

For w^e little Christian girls 
To play with the girls like you ; 

For our Sunday-school teacher — See? 
Says your father is only a Jew; 

An' the Jews nailed Christ on the tree." 
The great black eyes filled with tears 

As the child with the dark, dark hair 
Said: "But that was hundreds of years 

Ago; an' / don't think it is fair 
To blame us girls with the pain 

That was given to Jesus by men 
That we didn't know. And it's vain — 

So my mamma says, to preten' 
That any one church is the best. 

60 1 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

We're as nicely behaved as you, 
An' our dollies as prettily dressed; 
An' my mamma always says true." 

So they quarreled and parted with eyes 
Flashing anger and tears. In the heart 

Of the yellow-haired child would rise 
Unbidden — a pain like a dart. 

That night she knelt by her bed — 

As she did every night — to pray, 
She threw back her wee bright head 

And her eyes looked up and away — 
Oh far, far away at the sky 

Through the unshaded window glass; 
And she said: ''Dear Lord, if I die 

In my sleep may my spirit pass 
To you like an angel ; and w^ear 

A little gold crown of my own ; 
And — my dear doll— I want her there, 

'Cause I hate to be there all alone." 

Then she paused a little and said : 

"Lord — if Elsie was only like me, 
A Christian, too, when she's dead 

I think I would like to see 
Her also; but she cannot go 

'Cause her fore-fathers — teacher said — 
Were nothing but Jews and so 

That settles it." Then on the bed 
The bright little one sank to sleep. 

But a wee small voice in her breast 
Seemed ever to rouse her and keep 

Her feverish pulses from rest. 

She dreamed that out of the skies 
A great, white cross rose to view; 

And Jesus looked at her with eyes 
Like Elsie's — and said: "I'm a Jew." 

Marie Harrold Garrison. 

602 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

In the Hour of Need 

F^'YE see that shop at the corner, with the three balls 

^"^ over the door? 

A pawnshop? Yes, it is, my lad — just that, and noth- 
ing more. 

Nothing remarkable in that? You see 'em every day? 

No doubt you do. But wait a bit, and let me say 
my say. 

Four months ago my little wife was ill as she could 

be; 
I thought I should have lost her, but you see she is 

still with me: 
I owe her life to him, my lad! To who d'ye ask? — 

to who ? 
To the old man at that popshop there! — and mark 

me, he's a Jew! 

That staggers you, I thought it would. But bear 

with me a bit ; 
It won't take long to let you have the sense and soul 

of it; 
Fanny was ill, and times were bad, and I'd no work 

to do; 
Fanny got worse, and then I took to visiting the Jew. 

Fanny got worse, and worse, and worse, — my God ; 

she was so ill ; 
And the times that were so tight before, my lad, got 

tighter still ; 
I pawned my things — such as they were — and I 

pawned my wife's things too. 
Till nothing was left to pawn — and still I had no 

work to do! 

I was starving — downright starving! — and Fanny was 

almost dead. 
One night as I sat, with tight-clasped hands, beside 

my poor girl's bed ; 

603 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

I closed my eyes in a dreamy way — didn't sleep j'ou 

understand ; — 
When I opened 'em I saw the Jew, with a basket in 

his hand! 

He was only a hook-nosed, crook-back Jew, but he 

seemed an angel then, 
For he brought new life to my dying wife, and made 

her strong again ! 
If Heaven is full when he dies, I know they'll make 

room for the Jew ! . . . 
There! that's the short of it, my lad, — and every word 

is true! 

Leto. 
(In the Graphic.) 



The Little Jew 
(A True Story) 

Vf/E were at school together, 
^ The little Jew and I, 
He had black e^^es, the biggest nose, 
The very smallest fist for blows, 

Yet nothing made him cry. 

We mocked him often and often, 

Called him all names we knew, — 

"Young Lazarus," "Father Abraham," 
"Moses," — for he was meek as a lamb. 

The gentle little Jew. 

But not a word he answered; 
Sat in his corner still, 

And worked his sums, and counted his task; 

Would never any favor ask. 
Did us nor good nor ill. 

604 



I 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Though sometimes he would lift up 
Those great dark Eastern eyes, 

Appealing, when w^e wronged him much, 

For pity? No! but full of such 
A questioning surprise. 

Just like a beast of the forest 

Caught in the garden's bound, — 
Hemmed in by cruel creatures tame 
That seem akin, almost the same. 

Yet how unlike are found ! 

He did his boyish duty 

In play-ground as in school ; 

A little put upon, and meek, 

Though no one ever called him ''sneak" 
Or "coward," still less "fool." 

But yet I never knew him, — 
Not rightly, I may say, — 

Till one day, sauntering round our square, 

I saw the little Jew boy there, 
Slow lingering after play. 

He looked so tired and hungry, 
So dull and weary both, 

"Hollo!" cried I, "you ate no lunch. 

Come, here's an apple ; have a munch ! 
Pley, take it! don't be loath." 

He gazed upon the apple. 

So large and round and red, 

Then glanced up towards the western sky,- 
The sun was setting gloriously, — 

But not a word he said. 

He gazed upon the apple. 
Eager as Mother Eve; 

Half held his hand out, drew it back; 

Dim drew his eyes, so big and black ; 
His breast began to heave. 

605 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

"I am so very hungry! 

And yet — No, thank you. No. 

*'Good-by." "You little dolt," said I, 
''Just take your apple. There, don't cry! 

Home with you! Off you go!" 

But still the poor lad lingered, 
And pointed to the sky; 

"The sunset is not very late; 

I'm not so hungry — I can wait. 
Thank you. Good-by, — good-by!" 

And then I caught and held him 

Against the palisade ; 

Pinched him and pommelled him right well, 
And forced him all the truth to tell, 

Exactly as I bade. 

It was their solemn fast-day, 

When every honest Jew 

From sunset unto sunset kept 

The fast. I mocked; he only wept: 

"What father does, I do." 

I taunted him and jeered him, — 
The more brute I, I feel. 

I held the apple to his nose ; 

He gave me neither words nor blows, — 
Firm, silent, true as steel. 

I threw the apple at him ; 
He stood one minute there, 

Then, swift as hunted deer at bay. 

He left the apple where it lay, 
And vanished round the square. 

I went and told my father, — 
A minister, you see ; 

I thought that he would laugh outright, 

At the poor silly Israelite; 
But very grave looked he. 

606 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Then said, ''My bold young Christian, 
Of Christian parents born, 

Would God that you may ever be 

As faithful unto Him — and me — 
As he you hold In scorn!" 

I felt my face burn hotly. 
My stupid laughter ceased ; 

For father is a right good man, 

And still I please him all I can. 
As parent and as priest. 

Next day, when school was over, 

I put my nonsense by ; 

Begged the lad's pardon, stopped all strife. 
And — well, we have been friends for life. 

The little Jew and I. 

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik. 

Only a Jew 

TN the land of Brittany, and long ago, 

"'• Lived one of those 

Despised and desolate, whose records show 

Insults and blows. 
Their old inheritance of wrong, who were 
Free once as the eyelids of the morn ; nor care 

Knew, nor annoy. 

In that city of joy. 
Heaven-chosen child, whom none to harm might dare ; 

Lived one who did as if his God stood near 

Watching his deed, 
Slow to give answer, ever swift to hear ; 

Whose brain would breed, 
Walking alone or watching through the night. 
No idle thought ; but he with ill would fight 

And day by day 

Would wax alway 
Wiser and better and nearer to the light. 

607 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And in this land a mother lost her child, 

And charged the Jew 
With crucifying him, who calmly smiled 

Denial. "You 
Have slain," quoth she, "to keep your Passover 
My son with sorceries." He answered her, 

"Your wit must fail ; 

An idle tale 
Is this; what proof thereof can you prefer?" 

But she went from him raging. Then he fled 

Out of that land ; 
And those there set a price on his gray head, 

Who with skilled hand 
Of craft had fed one daughter fair as day. 
Now destitute. Soon gold before her lay 

The bait of shame; 

But she, aflame 
With honor, flung such happiness away. 

And writing, told her father, who came back 

By night, and bade 
Her claim his life's reward. "Rather the rack 

Rend me," she said ; 
"And shall I give him death who life gave me ? 
Sell him and feed on him? Far sooner we 

Both died ! Somewhere 

Beyond earth's care 
Hereafter we shall meet it well may be 

Somewhere hereafter." "Nay, you still shall live," 

He murmured ; then, 
Went out into the market, crying, "Give 

This price, ye men, 
For me to her, my daughter." But these laid 
False hands on both, nor other duty paid 

Than death ; for they. 

Gold hair and gray, 
Were slain hard by in the holy minster's shade. 

608 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

After, in no long time, the little child 

Returned, a stray 
Fresh from the sea: it by a ship beguiled, 

In the hold at play, 
Had sailed unseen till the land a small speck grew, 
But still the people prayed in the porch, in view 

Of the blood-splashed stone, 

And made no moan; 
** 'Twas only a Jew," the folk said, "only a Jew!" 

Anonymous. 



Holy Cross Day 

ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO ATTEND AN 
ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON IN ROME 

("Now was come about Holy-Cross Day, and now 
must my lord preach his first sermon to the Jews; as 
it was of old cared for in the merciful bowels of the 
Church, that, so to speak, a crumb at least from her 
conspicuous table here in Rome should be, though but 
once yearly, cast to the famishing dogs, under-trampled 
and bespitten upon beneath the feet of the guests. 
And a moving sight in truth, this, of so many of the 
besotted blind restif and ready-to-perish Hebrews! 
Now maternally brought — nay, (for He saith, 'Compel 
them to come in') haled, as it were, by the head and 
hair, and against their obstinate hearts, to partake of 
the heavenly grace. What awakening, what striving 
with tears, what working of a yeasty conscience ! Nor 
was my lord wanting to himself on so apt an occasion ; 
witness the abundance of conversions which did in- 
continently reward him : though not to my lord be alto- 
gether the glory." — Diary by the Bishop's Secretary, 
1600.) 

What the Jews really said, on thus being driven to 
church, was rather to this effect: — 



609 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

I 

PEE, faw, f um ! bubble and squeak ! 

•■• Blessedest Thursday's the fat of the week. 

Rumble and tumble, sleek and rou^h, 

Stinking and savory, smug and gruff, 

Take the church-road, for the bell's due chime 

Give us the summons — 't is sermon-time 1 

II 

Bob, here's Barnabas! Job, that's you? 

Up stumps Solomon — bustling too? 

Shame, man ! greedy beyond your years 

To handsel the bishop's shaving-shears? 

Fair play's a jewel! Leave friends in the lurch? 

Stand on a line ere you start for the church! 

Ill 

Higgledy piggledy, packed we lie, 
Rats in a hamper, swine in a sty, 
Wasps in a bottle, frogs in a sieve. 
Worms in a carcass, fleas in a sleeve. 
Hist! square shoulders, settle your thumbs 
And buzz for the bishop — here he comes. 

IV 
Bow, wow, wow — a bone for the dog! 
I liken his Grace to an acorned hog. 
What, a boy at his side, w^ith a bloom of a lass, 
To help and handle my lord's hour-glass! 
Didst ever behold so lithe a chine? 
His cheek hath laps like a fresh-singed swine. 

V 

Aaron's asleep — shove hip to haunch, 

Or somebody deal him a dig in the paunch! 

Look at the purse with the tassel and knob, 

And the gown wnth the angel and thingumbob! 

What's he at, quotha? reading his text! 

Now you've his curtse)^ — and what comes next? 

6io 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

VI 

See to our converts — you doomed black dozen — 

No stealing awa}^ — nor cog nor cozen ! 

You five, that were thieves, deserve it fairly; 

You seven, that were beggars, will live less sparely; 

You took your turn and dipped in the hat. 

Got fortune — and fortune gets you, mind that ! 

VII 
Give your first groan — compunction's at work ; 
And soft ! from a Jew you mount to a Turk, 
Lo, Micah, — the selfsame beard on chin 
He was four times already converted in ! 
Here's a knife, clip quick — it's a sign of grace — 
Or he ruins us all with his hanging face. 

VIII 

Whom now is the bishop a-leering at? 

I know a point where his text falls pat. 

I'll tell him to-morrow, a word just now 

Went to my heart and made me vow 

I meddle no more with the worst of trades — 

Let somebody else pay his serenades! 

IX 

Groan altogether now, whee-hee-hee ! 

It's a-work, it's a-work, ah, woe is me! 

It began, when a herd of us, picked and placed. 

Were spurred thro' the Corso, stripped to the waist; 

Jew brutes, with sweat and blood well spent 

To usher in worthily Christian Lent. 

X 

It grew, when the hangman entered our bounds, 

Yelled, pricked us out to his church like hounds; 

It got to a pitch, when the hand indeed 

Which gutted my purse, would throttle my creed: 

And it overflows, when, to even the odd. 

Men I helped to their sins help me to their God. 

6ll 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

XI 

But now, while the scapegoats leave our flock 

And the rest sit silent and count the clock, 

Since forced to muse the appointed time 

On these precious facts and truths sublime, — 

Let us fitly employ it, under our breath, 

.In saying Ben Ezra's Song of Death. 

XII 

For Rabbi Ben Ezra, the night he died. 

Called sons and sons' sons to his side. 

And spoke, **This world has been harsh and strange; 

Something is wrong: there needeth a change. 

But what, or where? at the last or first? 

In one point only we sin, at worst. 

XIII 

''The Lord will have mercy on Jacob yet, 
And again in his border see Israel set. 
When Judah beholds Jerusalem, 
The stranger-seed shall be joined to them : 
To Jacob's House shall the Gentiles cleave. 
So the Prophet saith and his sons believe. 

XIV 

"Ay, the children of the chosen race 
Shall carry and bring them to their place: 
In the land of the Lord shall lead the same, 
Bondsmen and handmaids. Who shall blame, 
When the slaves enslave, the oppressed ones o'er 
The oppressor triumph for evermore? 

XV 

"God spoke, and gave us the word to keep: 
Bade never fold the hands nor sleep 
'Mid a faithless world, — at watch and ward, 
Till Christ at the end relieve our guard. 
By his servant Moses the watch was set: 
Tho' near upon cock-crow, we keep it yet. 

6l2 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

XVI 

"Thou! if thou wast he, who at mid-watch came, 

By the starlight, naming a dubious name! 

And if, too heavy with sleep — too rash 

With fear — O thou, if that martyr-gash 

Fell on thee coming to take thine own, 

And we gave the Cross, when we owed the Throne- 

XVII 

"Thou art the Judge. We are bruised thus. 
But, the Judgment over, join sides with us! 
Thine, too, is the cause ! and not more thine 
Than ours, is the work of these dogs and swine, 
Whose life laughs through and spits at their creed! 
Who maintain thee in word, and defy thee in deed! 

XVIII 

"We withstood Christ then? Be mindful how 
At least we withstand Barabbas now! 
Was our outrage sore? But the worst we spared, 
To have called these — Christians, had we dared ! 
Let defiance to them pay mistrust of thee, 
And Rome make amends for Calvary! 

XIX 

"By the torture, prolonged from age to age. 
By the infamy, Israel's heritage. 
By the Ghetto's plague, by the garb's disgrace, 
By the badge of shame, by the felon's place. 
By the branding-tot)l, tV-e bloody whip, 
And the summons to Christian fellowship, — 

XX 

"We boast our proof that at least the Jew 
Would wrest Christ's name from the Devil's crew. 
Thy face took never so deep a shade 
But we fought them in it, God our aid ! 

613 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

A trophy to bear, as we march, thy band. 
South, East, and on to the Pleasant Land!" 

Robert Browning. 
(Pope Gregory XVI abolished this bad business of 
the Sermon. — R. B.) 

The Guardian of tJie Red Disk 

(Spoken by a citizen of Malta — 1300) 

A CURIOUS title held in high repute, 
^""^ One among many honors, thickly strewn 
On my Lord Bishop's head, his grace of Malta. 
Nobly he bears them all, — with tact, skill, zeal, 
Fulfils each special office, vast or slight, 
Nor slurs the least minutia, — therewithal 
Wears such a stately aspect of command. 
Broad-cheeked, broad-chested, reverend, sanctified. 
Haloed with white about the tonsure's rim, 
With dropped lids o'er the piercing Spanish eyes 
(Lynx-keen, I warrant, to spy out heresy) ; 
Tall, massive form, o'ertowering all in presence, 
Or ere they kneel to kiss the large white hand. 
His looks sustain his deeds, — the perfect prelate, 
Whose void chair shall be taken, but not filled. 

You know not, who are foreign to the isle. 
Haply, what this Red Disk may be, he guards. 
'Tis the bright blotch, big as the Royal seal, 
Branded beneath the beard of every Jew. 
These vermin so Infest the isle, so slide 
Into all byways, hlghwa3^s that may lead 
Direct or roundabout to wealth or power. 
Some plain, plump mark was needed, to protect 
From degrading contact Christian folk. 

The evil had grown monstrous: certain Jews 
Wore such a haughty air, had so refined, 
With super-subtile arts, strict, monkish lives. 
And studious habit, the coarse Hebrew type, 

614 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

One might have elbowed in the public mart 
Iscariot, — nor suspected one's soul-peril. 
Christ's blood ! it sets my flesh a-creep to think ! 
We may breathe freely now, not fearing taint, 
Praised be our good Lord Bishop! He keeps count 
Of every Jew, and prints on cheek or chin 
The scarlet stamp of separateness, of shame. 

No beard, blue-black, grizzled or Judas-colored, 
May hide that damning little wafer-flame. 
When one appears therewith, the urchins know 
Good sport's at hand ; they fling their stones and mud, 
Sure of their game. But most the wisdom shows 
Upon the unbelievers' selves; they learn 
Their proper rank; crouch, cringe, and hide, — lay by 
Their insolence of self-esteem; no more 
Flaunt forth In rich attire, but in dull weeds, 
Slovenly donned, would slink past unobserved ; 
Bow servile necks and crook obsequious knees. 
Chin sunk in hollow chest, eyes fixed on earth 
Or blinking sidewise, but to apprehend 
Whether or not the hated spot be spied. 
I warrant my Lord Bishop has full hands. 
Guarding the Red Disk — lest one rogue escape! 

Emma Lazarus. 

Rabbi Ben Ezra 

r^ ROW old along w^ith me ! 
^^ The best is yet to be, 

The last of life, for which the first was made: 
Our times are In His hand 
Who saith : "A whole I planned. 

Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be 
afraid!" 

Look not thou down but up ! 
To uses of a cup. 

The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, 

615 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The new wine's foaming flow, 
The Master's lips aglow ! 

Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou 
with earth's wheel ? 



I 

I 



But I need, now as then, 

Thee, God, who mouldest men ; | 

And since, not even while the whirl was worst, 
Did I — to the wheel of life 
With shapes and colors rife. 

Bound dizzily — mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst. 

So, take and use Thy work: 
Amend what flaws may lurk. 

What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the 
aim! 
My times be in Thy hand ! 
Perfect the cup as planned! 

Let age approve of youth, and death complete the 
same! Robert Browning. 



The Angel 

T DREAMT I saw an angel in the sk}^, 

■*• Her face was calm and fair up there on high; 

She smiled at me — a strange and lovely smile 

That had in it no thought of earthly guile. 

She looked so fair, so strange and wondrous pure. 

That 'twas an angel, I was passing sure; 

She spoke — her voice was music in the air; 

So sweet it was, it matched her person fair. 

She asked me, "Is there aught that I can do?" 

I humbly answered, "Make me fair as you." 

She smiled again, that strange unearthly smile, 

That made all mundane things seem crude and vile- 

"Thou art not ready yet," she seemed to say 

And with a sigh, she floated far away. 

Dorothy S. Silverman. 
6i6 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

A Legend 

nrO the home of the rabbi a Lord in his splendor, 
"*• Comes riding at dead of night; 
His glittering helmet with feathers is garnished, 
With stains his breast is bedight. 

In a room where the flame of a lamplet is glowing, 

So wan and so lonely and dim; 
The Lord of the Manor in quest of his learning, 

Attentively listens to him. 

And yet ere the church bells at dawn o' the morning 

Their summons to prayer intone. 
The Lord of the Manor rides forth from the Ghetto; 

To no one his secret is known. 

By daylight the sage in his cloistered seclusion 

Sees never the Lord of the night ; 
But the dreams and the deeds of the noble disciple. 

Are fruit of the tree of his might. 

And so through the squalor and dirt of the Ghetto, 

The Lord with his retinue rides, 
And gazes with pensive and yearning attention. 

At the home where his teacher abides. 

Jehoash. 
(Translated by Elias Lieberman.) 



The Rabbi's Song 

TF thought ever reach to Heaven, 
^ On Heaven let it dwell. 
For fear that Thought be given 

Like Power to reach to Hell; 
For fear that Desolation 

And darkness on thy mind 
Perplex the habitation 

Which thou hast left behind. 

617 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Our lives, our tears as water 

Are poured upon the ground ; 
God giveth no man quarter, 

Yet God a means hath found, 
Tho' faith and hope have vanished 

And even love grows dim, 
A means whereby his banished 

Be not expelled from Him. 

RuDYARD Kipling. 



A Sonnet 

To the Beloved Memory of Robert Browning 

CERENE, translucent as yon Maytime star 
^ In sanctuary of its bliss superb. 

Accept, O Bard ! a sprig of Israel's herb, 
In bitterness no less familiar 
To you, than is the knell of surging bar, 

When night-winds raving, dreamer's peace perturb, 

With blood and fire, and hell-groans from the curb, 
Shrined in the tales you wrote in days afar, 
Brave sharer in our nether fates, you bore 

Israel's death-crown, voiced his feeble rights, 
Stood weeping by his side, and mourning wore. 

In those black days, whose memory still frights. 
Still casts its spectral hue athwart the brain. 
And feeds the heart with hopeless endless pain. 

M. L. R. Breslar. 



The Hebrew Mind 

f^ IFTS, as romantic as the cruse of oil, 
^-* Found in the days of mad Antiochus, 

Were brewed by Hadrian from henbane; spruce 
For Israel's quaffing; potions, framed to foil 
A nation's growth, they met with swift recoil! 

6x8 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Tempt never genius, with devil's juice! 
Vain arts, O Hadrian, and vain the ruse, — 
When balked by birds, who garnered all the spoil. 
For Hadrian, as for Vespasian, 

History sheds a tear of wonder blind ; 
Mere vessels those, Balaam's sent to bless, 
They scourged with fire and sword, till the dread ban 
Flowered, like Aaron's rod of loveliness, 
And forged that wondrous thing, the Hebrew mind. 

M. L. R. Breslar. 



Who Gives in Love ' 

"^AUGHT is there in life worth living, 
^ ^ Save it flavored be by love ; 
Naught is there In life worth giving, 

Save it sanctioned be above. 
Who in evil mood bestoweth. 
In his heart the canker groweth ; 
He who gives In truth and love 
Shall a thousand pleasures prove. 

IsiDOR Wise. 



An Invocation 

/^H, harp of Judah! wake again! 

^^ Can no one deftly touch thy strings 

To scatter far the sacred strain 

Which from divlnest patience springs! 
Have all the strife-sown troublous years 

No joys for happy song to cast? 
Can love distil no hope from tears, 

Or steal no beauty from the past? 

Has music lost Its spell and power 
To summon hopes that only rest? 

Endowed with truths, our lasting dower, 
That mock the ages' wear and test ; 

619 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Can no heart-stirring melody 

Imbued with light and touched with fire, 
Flow from a nation proud and free 

Whose past must urge them to aspire? 

Reproach, an ignominious sea, 

Can follow in our wake no more; 
The poisoned waves of calumny 

Are washed away from Freedom's shore. 
The justice of a nobler age 

Has reached and raised our scattered race ; 
Our history shows a fairer page, 

Our future wears a brighter face. 

The rooted weeds of narrow thought 

Which closely cling, or idly spread, 
Which ignorance has sown and wrought. 

Are crushed and buried with the dead. 
A loftier sense of heavenly things, 

A wider view of human life 
Have fashioned tolerance : which brings 

Its own repose to cast off strife. 

Beyond man's vain imaginings, 

Is Israel's faith that never dies. 
The boon of slaves — the pride of Kings — 

Its meanings make the nations wise. 
And thro' the mists of ages gone, 

Its God-stamped visions still appear 
As in the Bible's earliest dawn, 

Supremely true, divinely clear! 

And who asserts that Judah's claim 

To any chosen land is o'er? 
When all the earth contains her fame 

That spreads and widens evermore; 
The truths that sanctify her creed 

Shall scatter hopes where'er they shine, 
Until all men shall feel the need 

Of her own unity divine. 

620 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

So wake, my harp," my fingers press 

Thy rust-worn strings, while fancy longs 
To dower with melodiousness, 

The burden of unuttered songs; 
My faltering touch may reach in vain 

The music of my sacred themes, 
Still Truth may charm the feeble strain 

And lend its sweetness to my dreams! 

Isidore G. Ascher. 



Adas Israel 

r\ ISRAEL! in the morn's returning light, 

^^ Thy temple stands, all crowned with splendor 

bright, 
And there, high Salem's courts again shall tell 
Jehovah's praise, and faith of Israel. 

The watchman on thy long benighted walls 

Hath marked the night's departing gloom, and calls; 

Up, Israel! now thy darkness flies away, 

And light is breaking into glorious day. 

The dawn of freedom on a darkened earth, 
Thy faith awakens to a brighter birth. 
Thy promised king — awaited long in vain, 
Now comes at last. In light and truth, to reign. 

Through long oppression, God hath guided thee. 
From darker Egypt, through a bloodless sea; 
And by the chastening of his hand, hath strove 
To make thee still more faithful to his love. 

And now, no more thy race oppressed shall be, 

But all thy foes shall strive to honor thee. 

And nations at thy temple-altars bring 

Their richest offerings to thy sovereign King — 

621 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

O Israel ! wandering in all lands afar, 
Thy faith of old — be still thy guiding star, 
And thy bright temple shall show forth again — 
The shining glories of thine ancient reign. 

M. Beyer, 



Poetry 

r^ OD made the world with rhythm and rime— 
^^ The sun's refrain he made the moon ; 
He swung the stars to beat In time 

And set the universe in tune. 
He gave the seas their mighty tongue. 

He gave his w^inds their lyric wings, 
And thus the very soul of Song 

Was w^oven in the scheme of things. 

To-day this wonder was revealed 

Upon a twilight colored plain ; 
I saw it In the town and field, 

I heard it In the singing rain. 
The bows and birds repeated it, 

The streams Intoned It as they ran. 
And then I saw how closely knit 

Were God and Poetry with man. 

A rift of sky — a group of trees, 

A ripple and a swallow's dart. 
The cadence of a dying breeze, 

Like sudden music, swept my heart; 
A laughing child looked up and sprang 

To greet me at the homeward climb — 
And all about mc surged and sang 

The world God made with rhythm and rime. 

Louis Untermeyer. 
622 



4 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Our Heritage 

\Y7E own no kingdom and we flaunt no king, 
^' No crown is ours to mock at or obey, 
No superficial homage do we bring 

To any dastard tyranny to-day; 
Our realms have broadened to the mighty world, 

The boundaries of our rule stretch far and wide, 
Our racial flag is evermore unfurled. 

Where Jewish souls in freedom's air abide, 
Our citadel is truth ; our empty home, 

Our ramparts are the laws to make us wise, 
Eternal as the azure-vaulted dome. 

Our heritage from Heaven never dies; 
And from the nations' flux and change and strife. 

The Jews draw strenuous force and vigorous life. 

Isidore G. Ascher. 

Israel's Heritage 

LJOW shall we spend, O Lord, 

Our priceless heritage; 
The wealth of Holy Writ (Thy Word), 

Bequeathed from age to age. 
How shall we use the garnered store 
Of Israel's ancient song and lore? 

Shall we, like misers, hoard 

The jewels in our care; 
The gems, by Seer and Prophet stored. 

That all mankind might share ; 
The law from Sinai's summit hurled 
To speak in thunder to the world. 

Shall we not spread broadcast 

This wealth that shall endure? 
These seeds of Faith, that in the past 

Burst into blossoms pure: 
Whose roots were nourished through the years 
By martyred Israel's blood and tears. 

623 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Heirs or thy Love are we, 

The First-born, chosen race; 
Holding in trust the legacy 

No tyrant can efface! 
Life of our life, breath of our breath, 
Outliving scorn, and hate and death! 

O let our Fathers preach 

Thy glory and Thy fame! 
O let our tender mothers teach 

Their babes to lisp thy name; 
That Israel in each coming age 
jVIay claim its precious heritage! 

Ida Goldsmith Morris. 

Fin de Steele 

"W/HAT ! do I hear the nations boast 
^' Of what the century's shown, 

The while on Corfu's distant coast 

The persecuted groan ? 
The while in Russia's spreading space 

No smallest place is found 
Whereon a guiltless hunted race 

May find a resting ground? 
The w^hile e'en noblest charity 

But little can avail, 
And bitter, widespread misery 

Relates a woful tale? 

The while some starve and have no bed 
While others roll in gold, 

And socialism's spirit dread 
The problem would unfold ? 

The w^hile in Europe's cultured lands 
Vast armies still maintain, 

And men must learn from skilled commands 
How men may best be slain? 

And to achieve this worldly lore 
Must work more worthy cease, 

Constrained to practice art of war 

624 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

In time of doubtful peace? 

The while so many a labor-strike 
Speaks of injustice rife, 

On man and master's side alike, 
And leads to endless strife? 

The while so man)^ wretched cry 
In vain for Work? Oh, say! 

Is aught herein to glorify? 
Or reason for dismay! Anonymous. 

Hope and Faith 

LJOPE! Not distant is the Springtime, 
**• ''■ Butterflies will soon be winging — 
In new nests the merry songsters 

Their new songs will soon be singing. 

Know! The night itself will vanish, 
Cloudlands drift and melt away — 

Once again will skies shine azure, 
Stars by night and suns by da)^ 

New the roses, new the flowers. 

Spring's new odors flow in waves, 

Brilliant colors, scents and singing 
Will arise above our graves. 

Isaac Leib Perez. 
(Translated by Henry Goodman.) 

Not by Power 

"Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, 
saith the lord of hosts." — Zachariah iv., 6. 

^OT by power 

Blooms the flower 
Of a growth unseen ; 

Ye shall find it, 
Ye shall bind it 

On your brows serene. 

625 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Not by might 

Darkest night 
Yields at dawn this prize; 

Springing surely, 
Slowly, purely, 

It shall humbly rise. 

Faith is mine, 

Love Divine 
Is its scented breath ; 

Faith that brightens, 
Cheers, enlightens, 

It shall conquer death ! 

Mary M. Cohen. 



Lin 



es 



Written on hearing a learned Lawyer say in Court, 
that *'the Jews were hated alike by God and man." 

CAY not that we are cut off by Thee, Guardian of 

*^ Israel's race; 

Despite of all our waywardness, in Thy love we hold 

a place ; 
And in our dark and bitter hours, we still can turn to 

Thee 
For guidance or for comfort, when earthly pleasures 

flee. 

Not utterly abhorred by Thee ! — man cannot trace Thy 

ways 
Nor reach into Thy hidden path, O Thou of ancient 

days. 
And must we still be taunted and told we are forgot. 
Condemned alike by Thee and man, our destiny a blot. 

Believe it not, believe it not! we are God's chosen still 
To whom He hath in mercy given the records of His 
will! 

626 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

To whom He hath in kindness said, "Fear not, for 

thou art Mine, 
I have called thee by My holy name, and glory shall 

be thine." 

Alice Rhine. 



The Glory of God 

On seeing the sun suddenly break forth and illumine 
the Sepher while it was being carried to the Hechal. 

TV/AS it thus, stricken remnant, the glory of God 
^^ Burst forth on the fathers, and showered its 

light 
Across the rude path that those weary ones trod, — 
A cloud-pillar by day, a flame-witness by night? 

As it guided the sire, it now gleams on the son; 

As it shone in the wilderness lonely and drear, 
So it burst to assure thee, O desolate one. 

That in sorrow and exile His presence is here. 

Then say not the day of thy triumph has fled. 
Say not that the star of thy glory has set. 

While the same holy blessing still rests on thy head, 
And the same "fire from heaven" illumines thee yet. 

Rebekah Hyneman. 



Lessons of the Past 

r7ROM mem'ry's lofty vantage ground 
•*• Our mental gaze w^e shift around 

O'er stretches of the past. 
We see dim realms of fading glory 
The trysting place of figures hoary. 
Whose plaintive accents sound one story: 

God's world alone doth last. 

627 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

We see the trophies won in strife 
That graced the triumphs of our life 

Lie strewn in sad array. 
Each mould'ring relic wails a strain, 
The warning dirge of myriads slain 
Whose echoes roll an old refrain : 

All earthly must decay. 

But in this threnody that saddens 

A message rings that ever gladdens, 

Ne'er perish soul and name, 
Though strongest hopes be broken, 
Yet every good word spoken 
Remains sweet mem'ry's token 

Of amaranthine fame. 

Harry Weiss. 



Rodef Shalom 

YJT/HEN ancient nations bowed the knee 
^^ To idols made of wood and stone, 

The Hebrew nation claimed to be 
The worshippers of God alone. 

For this they suf^er'd, bled, and died, 
A chosen people strong and free; 

Strong in the faith that should abide 
Of God's own matchless majesty. 

Chosen the heralds of a light, 

The blinded nations could not see, 

Chosen to banish moral right 
And rescue from Idolatry. 

Still strong in faith of God alone. 

They rear this Temple to His name, 

Jehovah's power and love to own, 
His tender mercies to proclaim. 

628 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Hail ! Holy One enthron'd above, 
The God and Father of us all, 

The Triumphs of Fraternal Love 
Shall prove we heed Thy loving call. 

Nor shall our labors e'er be done 

Till God is honor'd and ador'd 
By every nation 'neath the sun, 

The one Jehovah, sovereign Lord. 

W. G. Skillman. 



The New Temple 

A NEW shrine stands in beauty reared, 
^^ Where scions of a faith revered 

Renew their vows to God — 
To Him this house they dedicate, 
To Him their hearts they consecrate. 

Upon this sacred sod. 

Here shall the words of praise be sung, 
From days, when yet the world was young, 

Of Psalmist and of Seer; 
Like torrent shall the chorus run, 
"The Lord our God, the Lord is One, 

Hear thou, O Israel, hear!" 

Hence shall ascend the fervent prayers 

Of thanks for joys, for strength, when cares 

And sorrows the soul rack; 
Here shall the breast where sin has surged, 
By the atonement's fires be purged. 

To holiness led back. 

On this new altar there shall blaze 
Refulgently the Bible's rays. 

Of Righteousness and Truth ; 
Here shall* the wond'rous tale be told 
The miracle of Israel old, 

And its undying youth. 

629 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

May justice ever here prevail, 
May love of all Mankind ne'er fail, 

And Charity ne'er cease; 
May God's Shekinah calmly rest, 
And they w^ho gather here be blessed 

With Concord and w^ith Peace. 

Louis Marshall.* 

♦Composed on the occasion of the dedication of the Nev/ Temple of 
the "Society of Concord," Syracuse, New York. 



Consecration Hymn 

pATHER of Life and Light and Power, 

To Thee we consecrate this hour! 
With earnest hope, with purpose pure, 
Oh, make this happy promise sure. 

Except Thou build, we work in vain, 
With holy zeal dost Thou sustain. 
Bind all our hearts In rich increase 
Of helpful deeds that ne'er shall cease. 

Help us to lay foundations strong 
Of love for right, of grief for wrong, 
And brotherhood with every race 
That seeks or needs the Father's grace. 

Help us to grow in pure desires, 
Kindle our souls with heavenly fires, 
That higher levels may be won^ 
And step by step Thy w^ill be done. 

Build in us all Thy spirit's shrine: 
Then shall we beam with light divine, 
''And work with heart and soul fend might 
For Truth and Freedom, God and Right." 

R. Wagner. 
630 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



The Kingdom of God 

HTHERE is no unbelief; 
"*• Whoever plants a seed beneath the sod 
And waits to see it push away the clod, 
He trusts in God. 

Whoever says when clouds are in the sky, 
"Be patient, heart ; light breaketh by-and-by," 
Trusts the Most High. 

Whoever sees, 'neath winter's field of snow, 
The silent harvest of the future grow, 
God's power must know. 

Whoever lies down on his couch to sleep, 
Content to lock each sense in slumber deep, 
Know^s God will keep. 

Edward Bulwer Lytton. 



Rebecca^s Hymn 

(From "Ivanhoe") 

"W7HEN Israel, of the Lord beloved, 
^^ Out of the land of bondage came, 

Her fathers' God before her moved, 

An awful guide, in smoke and flame. 
By day, along the astonish'd lands 

The cloudy pillar glided slow ; 
By night, Arabia's crimson'd sands 

Return'd the fiery column's glow. 

There rose the choral hymn of praise. 
And trump and timbrel answer'd keen. 

And Zion's daughters pour'd their lays, 
With priest's and warrior's voice between. 

631 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

No portents now our foes amaze, 

Forsaken Israel wanders lone ; 
Our fathers would not know Thy ways, 

And Thou hast left them to their own. 

But present still, though now unseen. 

When brightly shines the prosperous day 
Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen 

To temper the deceitful ray. 
And oh, when stoops on Judah's path 

In shade and storm the frequent night, 
Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath, 

A burning and a shining light! 

Our harps we left by Babel's streams. 

The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn ; 
No censer round our altar beams, 

And mute are timbrel, harp and horn, 
But Thou hast said, the blood of goat, 

The flesh of rams, I will not prize ; 
A contrite heart, a humble thought, 

Are Mine accepted sacrifice. 

Sir Walter Scott. 



A Jewish Family 

n ENIUS of Raphael! if thy wings 
^^ Might bear thee to this glen. 
With faithful memory left of things 

To pencil dear and pen, 
Thou wouldst forego the neighboring Rhine, 

And all his majesty — 
A studious forehead to incline 

O'er this poor family. 

The Mother — her thou must have seen, 

In spirit, ere she came 
To dwell these rifted rocks between, 

Or found on earth a name ; 

632 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

An image, too, of that sweet Boy, 

Thy inspirations give — 
Of playfulness, and love, and joy, 

Predestined here to live. 

Downcast, or shooting glances far, 

How beautiful his eyes. 
That blend the nature of the star 

With that of summer skies! 
I speak as if of sense beguiled ; 

Uncounted months are gone, 
Yet am I with the Jewish Child, 

That exquisite Saint John. 

I see the dark brown curls, the brow, 

The smooth, transparent skin. 
Refined, as w^ith intent to show 

The holiness within ; 
The grace of parting Infancy 

By blushes yet untamed ; 
Age faithful to the mother's knee. 

Nor of her arms ashamed. 

Two lovely Sisters, still and sweet 

As flowers, stand side by side; 
Their soul-subduing looks might cheat 

The Christian of his pride: 
Such beauty hath the Eternal poured 

Upon them not forlorn, 
Though of a lineage once abhorred. 

Nor yet redeemed from scorn. 

Mysterious safeguard, that, in spite 

Of poverty and wrong. 
Doth here preserve a living light. 

From Hebrew fountains sprung; 
That gives the ragged group to cast 

Around the dell a gleam 
Of Palestine, of glory past. 

And proud Jerusalem ! 

William Wordsworth. 

633 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Rebecca, the Jewess 

/'^LOSED are the tear-gates of Paradise now, 
^^ And the shadows of death lie cold on the brow 

Of Rebecca, the Jewess so fair; 
And her dark eyes that sparkled than diamonds more 

bright, 
Have paled the soft rays of their pure, living light, 
And vacant they gaze as a lone star of night. 

When darkness is filling the air, — 

The balmy, the soft summer air. 

Weep, daughters of Zion! Weep, chosen of God! 

For the morrow shall moulder, beneath the cold clod. 
The form of the spirit that's fled ! 

Wreathe the dark hair of the maiden laid low, 

Spread violets over her bosom of snow. 

And lay her down peacefully, calmly, below 

The green winding-sheet of the dead. 
The flower-decked robe of the dead. 

There let her sleep, till the last trump shall sound 
The call of the dead, that slumber around 

Earth's green hills, and by its streams; 
Waked by the voice of the Angel of Doom, 
Then may she burst in the dark gates of the tomb. 
Arrayed in white robes, and radiant with bloom 

To sing in the Land of Dreams, — 

The beautiful Land of Dreams. 

Clark B. Cochrane. 



The American Jewess 

r\ YOUNGEST daughter of thy ancient race, 
^^ In thy behalf great progress has been wrought; 
Thou hast advanced unto a higher place 

In this free land of stirring act and thought. 
Unhampered child of liberty art thou. 

Upon whom smiles each science and each art; 

634 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

The fetters of the past are rent and now 
Thou canst go freely forth and do thy part. 

But more than this the present means to thee: 
Thou art the sponsor of thy people's weal, 

And thine the sacred privilege to be 
The guardian spirit of its high ideai — 

To seek the right, uphold the just, the true, 

And make of each a better man, a worthier Jew. 

Albert Ulmann. 

Jewess 

]V/[Y dark-browed daughter of the Sun, 
^^ ^ Dear Bedouin of the desert sands. 

Sad daughter of the ravished lands, 
Of savage Sinai, Babylon — 
O, Egypt-eyed, thou art to me 
A God-encompassed mystery. 

I see sad Hagar in thy eyes. 
The obelisks, the pyramids, 
Lie hid beneath thy drooping lids, 

The tawny Nile of Moses lies 

Portrayed in thy strange people's force, 

And solemn mystery of source. 

The black abundance of thy hair 
Falls like some sad twilight of June 
Above the dying afternoon, 
, And mourns thy people's mute despair. 

The large solemnity of night, 

O Israel, is in thy sight. 

Then come where stars of freedom spill 
Their splendor, Jewess. In this land, 
The same broad hollow of God's hand 

That held 5^ou ever, outholds still. 

And whether you be right or nay, 

'Tis God's, not Russia's, here to say. 

Joaquin Miller. 
635 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



The Jewess 

TJER hair is winged with summer nights, 
■'■■'• Her brow is like the dawn, 
Her voice is like an olden song 

That memory lingers on, 
And all her movements are as soft 

And gentle as a fawn. 

A lovely mild, and winsome girl 
Of strange and Eastern grace — 

I thought, "How happy art thou, child 
In whom all gifts find place," 

Till deep within her eyes I saw 
The story of her race. 

Allan Davis. 



Oriental e 

CHE'S an enchanting little Israelite, 

^ A world of hidden dimples! — Dusk^^-eyed, 
A starry-glancing daughter of the Bride — 

With hair escaped from some Arabian Night; 

Her lip is red, her cheek is golden-white, 
Her nose a scimitar; and, set aside 
The bamboo hat she cocks with so much pride, 

Her dress a dream of daintiness and delight. 

And when she passes with' the dreadful boys 

And romping girls, the cockneys loud and crude, 

My thought to the Minories tied, but moved to range 
The Land o' the Sun, commingles with the noise 
Of magian drums and scents of sandal-wood, 

A touch Sidonian, modern, taking, strange. 

William Henley. 



636 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

An Oriental Maiden 

nPHOU fairest one of Judah's daughters, 
*" I would thy lover be; 
Oh, may thy heart be free from others, 

And treasured but for me. 
I fain would see thy brown eyes brighten, 

Which all their love disclose; 
To see thy cheeks, their colors brighten, 

Like tintings on the rose. 

Thou maiden rare, of ancient nation, 

Thy soul is dear to me ; 
And does my heart, with each pulsation. 

Beat every stroke for thee. 
Then grant the boon, I ask thy favor. 

And give thy word to-day. 
Oh, let me come, thy truest lover, 

And bid me not away. J. Q. Jenkyns. 



The Maid of the Ghetto 

OxA.D eyes and dark she bends upon the throng, 
^ Man's exile and Earth's alien in all lands! 
Her ears drink up the street's tempestuous song, 

And all its currents lave her where she stands. 
Not Time nor Place shall rob her of her dower 

For rooted in her long remembrance dwell 
The days of glory and the realms of power, 

The temples and the tribes of Israel. 

Not this crushed, driven multitude she sees, 

But priests and patriarchs that chant their psalms; 
Not these stark walls of brick, but, all at ease. 

Her white-robed sisters by the springs and palms. 
And phantoms out of ancient daj^s returning, 

Light up the amber vastness of her land ; 
Oblivious to this Stygian asphalt burning, 

Her feet are cool on Jordan's silver sand. 

637 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Disparted long and reft from Palestine, 

Lorn maiden of Judaea, dost thou wait 
By these strange walls of ages reared between 

Thee and some lover sealed and consecrate? 
Dost thou seek here his face amidst these faces, 

His form from out this hurrying, sullen press, 
Or is thy mystic longing but thy race's — 

Thou living statue of its mute distress? 

Thou dusk-eyed daughter of Eternity, 

Thou standest in the Visible and Now; 
The Past hath locked its mystery in thee. 

And Orient suns have rolled athwart thy brow. 
Thy face foreshadows fruitful generations, 

O nymph of Jewry from the iron lands! — 
Art thou some Esther in the house of nations, — 

Some Judith with a falchion in her hands? 

Anonymous. 

The Jewish Mother 

A STAR of guidance o'er Life's troubled ocean, 
^^ A sunbeam flashing tempest-clouds in twain, 
The wafted fragrance deepening, soul-emotion 
The benediction won from heights of pain. 

A voice familiar with melodious calling; 

A solemn adjuration from on High ; 
A veiled and tender glory, earthward falling 

From unseen altars, 'neath eternal sky. 

Pathetic memories of a father's blessing, 

When thornless roses crowned the lifted head ; 

The gentle touch of mother-hands caressing, 
Ere cypress paths to desert-wanderings led. 

All-conquering joy of new-found inspiration, 
That healing balm pours on the longing breast ; 

The life ennobles that in consecration 
Keeps evermore the day of holy rest. 

A Daughter of Judah. 

638 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Like unto Sharon s Roses 

IWFY darling, your grace 

'*•'■'■ And the bloom of your face 

Are sweet as of Sharon the roses, . . . 
And a radiance rare 
Illumines your hair 

As verdure where moonlight reposes ; 
And your cadence is low 
As Jordan's still flow 

When twilight day's revelry closes. 

My darling, your blush 
Is like morning's full flush 

When over Mount Hermon he's scaling, 
And the dream in your eye 
Is like Galilee's sky 

When only one cloudlet is sailing. 
And the lure of your smile 
My sadness beguile 

And raise me from doubting and failing. 

RuFus Learsi. 



I saw a Maiden Sweet and Fair 

I SAW a maiden sweet and fair 
*■ Of an ancient wand'ring nation, 
Her simple garb the signs did bear 
Of poor and humble station. 

Knew she some other clime but late. 
This meek and gentle maiden ? 

Methought I marked her people's fate, 
On her black tresses laden. 

I looked into her great dark eyes, 
Demure and sparkling tender; 

They gazed serene as May-day skies, 
In calm and cloudless splendor. 

639 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Yet oft some inner mood would cast 

A sadness o'er her glances, 
As flits a swallow's shadow past 

A brook where sunlight dances. 

RuFUS Learsi. 



Lines to a Jewish Child 

TN the dark depths of those great soulful eyes, 

My little Hebrew lad, I fain would read 
The marvelous history of thy marvelous race; 
The patience, silent suffering, cruel wrongs, 
The courage shrinking not from tortuous death ; 
The constancy that wavers not or turns. 
The faith and trust of deep devotion born, 
The hope that triumphs over every woe. 
The love of kindred, reverence for age, 
The virtues manifold that make thy race. 

Truly, God's chosen people these must be. 

Else long since had they perished from the earth. 

When blushing I recall the insults foul 

That we have heaped on them in Christ's dear name, 

And think how meekly they that own not Christ 

Have suffered all and struggled bravely on, 

Through sorrow, persecution, torture, death — 

I can conceive, my little Hebrew lad. 

What pride a Jew must feel to be a Jew ! 

C. D. 

Rachel 

I 

TN Paris all look'd hot and like to fade. 
*■ Sere, in the garden of the Tuileries, 

Sere, with September, droop'd the chestnut-trees. 
Tvvas dawn ; a brougham roll'd through the streets 
and made 

640 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Halt at the white and silent colonnade 

Of the French Theatre. Worn with disease, 
Rachel, with eyes no gazing can appease, 

Sate in the brougham and those blank walls survey'd. 

She follows the gay world, whose swarms have fled 
To Switzerland, to Baden, to the Rhine; 
Why stops she by this empty play-house drear? 

Ah, where the spirit its highest life hath led. 

All spots, match'd with that spot, are less divine; 

And Rachel's Switzerland her Rhine is here! 

II 

Unto a lovely villa, in a dell 

Above the fragrant warm Provengal shore. 
The dying Rachel in a chair they bore 

Up the steep pine-plumed paths of the Estrelle, 

And laid her in a stately room, where fell 
The shadow of a marble Muse of yore. 
The rose-crown'd queen of legendary lore, 

Polymnia, full on her death-bed. — 'Twas well ! 

The fret and misery of our northern towns. 

In this her life's last day, our poor, our pain, 
Our jangle of false wits, our climate's frowns, 

Do for this radiant Greek-soul'd artist cease; 

Sole object of her dying eyes remain 
The beauty and the glorious art of Greece. 

Ill 

Sprung from the blood of Israel's scattered race, 
At a mean inn in German Aarau born. 
To forms from antique Greece and Rome uptorn, 

Trick'd out with a Parisian speech and face, 

641 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Imparting life renew'd, old classic grace; 

Then, soothing with thy Christian strain forlorn, 
A-Kempis! her departing soul outworn, 

While by her bedside Hebrew rites have place — 

Ah, not the radiant spirit of Greece alone 
She had — one power, which made her breast Its home! 
In her, like us, there clash'd, contending powers, 

Germany, France, Christ, Moses, Athens, Rome. 
The strife, the mixture in her soul, are ours; 
Her genius and her glory are her own. 

Matthew Arnold. 



Rachel 

HEN Memnon's sculptured form the god of day 
Touched from the orient gate with glance of 
fire. 
As from the golden harps that seraphs plaj^ — 
Burst heavenly music from that silent lyre. 
Thus caught the chiselled grace of ancient art 

Life from your touch, and beauty breathing soul; 
Thus woke to startled life the panting heart 

That ne'er before knew passion's wild control, 
Woke to the light of grace and love and power 
That ever holds enshrined 3'our honored name. 
What garland, woven in the Muses' bower, 

Can match the meed of such a glorious fame? 
Queen of the realm of passion and of thought, 

What victor monarch's crown is with such gems 
enwrought. 

Anonymous. 



642 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



Kalich, Inheritor of Tragedy 

l/'ALICH, thou of the dark and brooding face, 
•■•^ Born unto Tragedy by birthright of race, 
The sorrows of uncounted years arise 
And plead for utterance in thy mournful eyes. 
And on thy lips, so poignant sweet with pain, 
God's stamp of suffering marks thy calling plain. 

So stood Rachel, of thy blood, in her day. 
So Bernhardt, of that blood, holds now her sway. 
And thou, full sister of these mighty two, 
The same blood-heritage claimeth as thy due. 

Valid thy claim. The centuries' seal is set 
Upon its warrant. Tears and blood have wet 
Its ancient and its modern countersigns. 
Sorrow unspeakable breathes between its lines. 
Where, down to Kishinev's cruel days, is told 
A nation's woe that dates from Egypt old. 

To thee descended — Lo, how dread the cry 

That rises from thy throat ! How tense and high 

With strain of agony! Not alone the part 

That now thou pla^-est thus doth wring thy heart, 

But all thy people's grief, accumulate, 

Sounds in thy voice, till, with race anguish great, 

Thou speakest not even one little, broken word, 

But Tragedy's supremest note is heard. 

This, then, the price of glory to thy name — 
How dire the cost, how bitter high the game, 
O, Kalich, on whose soul the forfeit lies 
Of genius born from w^orld-old sacrifice! 
We yield us to the magic of thy spell. 
With our applause the playhouse echoes swell, 
We sound the praises of thy tragic power — 
Yet still how bare, how empty, thy full hour! 

643 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

What wonder, then that even at Fame's full flood, 
Thy eyes still bear mute witness to thy blood, 
Sombre with persecution — its wan sign 
Still resting on those piteous lips of thine, 
O, Kalich, thou in whom all Israel's woe, 
Concentrate, makes the Genius-Gift we know! 

Ripley D. Saunders. 



To ihe Memory of Grace Aguilar 

Author of "Woman's Friendship," "Vale of Cedars," 

etc., etc. 

A ND thou art gone, Grace Aguilar, 
^^ The "Darling" of the race; 
Child of the "hated," thou wert one 

E'en any sphere to grace ; 
And O, like her, proud Hebrew maid, 

Thou didst awake a cry, 
Pure as the northern peasant was. 

Is chronicled on high. 

For though destruction's bosom swept 

Thy children o'er the earth, 
They yet shall worship in the land 

Which gave their fathers birth ; 
And Zion's song shall yet be deemed 

Acceptable to God, 
And Zion's maidens sweetly dance 

On Jordan's hallow'd sod. 

And, lovely one, like Wilberforce, 

Thou scarce didst live to see 
Thy prayer fulfill'd, the fact'ry child 

From slavery set free. 
Like "Darling" thou didst raise the cry. 

The helpless heard thy voice. 
And hoping still, thou help'dst them on. 

And bade their souls rejoice. 

644 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

I mourn for thee, my sister friend, 

As kindred in that art 
Which is Divine — a holy tie 

No human pow'r can part. 
When first my muse essay'd to sing, 

'Neath Wilson's fostering care, 
Thou, too didst grace the glowing page. 

And Youatt's name was there. 

We knew no creed, save that which bound 

Our souls in ties as strong 
As revelation e'er proclaimed 

Or grac'd the Psalmist's song; 
Onward we w^ent, one hope in view, 

Both pilgrims on the road. 
Towards the "everlasting towers," 

"The city of our God." 

Peace to thine ashes! May there rise 

From out thine ashes now, 
A genius of thy race, as bright, 

As purely bright as thou. 
And when our earthly race is o'er, 

O may w^e meet above, 
And join the bright-robed heav'nly throng 

Who sing that "God is Love." 

Anonymous. 



Moses Mendelssohn 

/^NCE, through a night of darkness and of shadow, 
^^ A brilliant star swept softly into sight ; 
It scattered out Its beams like sllv'ry lances. 

And, in its pathway, left a streak of light. 
But, when the rosy blushes of the morning 

Broke over earth, the star had passed awayj 
And yet its light still travels down to mankind 

Through endless dawnings of the golden day. 

645 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Once, through ^n age of mental gloom and shadow, 

When ignorance and superstition reigned, 
When only those upon the heights of fortune 

A glimpse of light — of grace and culture gained, 
There dawned for Israel a star of glory 

Whose friendly beam through doubt and darkness 
shone, 
And led the gaze of mankind to the hill-tops ; — 

This star of light was Moses Mendelssohn. 

Poor Israel was then despised — rejected! 

For prejudice had built a boundless wall 
O'er which no tendril of a common feeling 

Could twine itself, — no ray of sunlight fall; 
Cut from the world, — its gladness and its sorrow — 

Poor patient souls, unconscious of their plight. 
Submissive with the patience of the sightless, 

Whose eyes have ne'er beheld the blessed light. 

And then came Mendelssohn; O God, and Father, 

We thank thee for this blessing to our race. 
We, Vv'ho to-day, in every art and science 

Hold an exalted and an honored place! 
For only progress brought to us our freedom. 

And only Culture, as she scanned the Jew, 
Could see and recognize the kindred spirit 

That loves the good, the beautiful, the true. 

And Mendelssohn It was who broke the fetters 

That tyranny had strengthened year by year ; 
'Twas he who smote upon the rock of knowledge 

And freed for us Its water, sweet and clear; 
And lifting up our thoughts to vaster Issues, 

Our fair Ideals to heights before unknown. 
Stood by our side, a Jew compelling nations 

To honor all the race he called his own. 

O, when can Germany e'er cease to cherish 
The ''Nathan Wise" Its Lessing's graphic pen 

- 646 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Has drawn in glowing and immortal colors, 
And held before the wond'ring eyes of men ! 

The gentle sage, the friend of prince and poet. 
Whose every word ennobled and refined, , ^ 

Who seemed to stand upon some mental summit 
And smile upon the factions of mankind. 

Unsightly and deformed the suff'ring body, 

But, from the thoughtful ej'es and noble face 
The glory of the soul shone out in splendor, — • 

A glowing gem in its translucent case ! 
And all the earth appeared to him in beauty, 

For o'er his heart-strings trembled, even then. 
The heav'ly melody with which his offspring 

Soothed and enslaved the ardent hearts of men. 

O, monarch in the realm of thought and reason ! 

O, high-priest in the temple of the soul ! 
Thy hymn of progress, tolerance and freedom, — 

Through endless ages shall its echoes roll ! 
Thou couldst not prove to us that mental culture 

And Judaism never are at strife. 
Nor show us immortality more clearly 

Than by the beauty of thy glorious life! 

A century has passed on restless pinions 

Since death removed thine image from the earth ; 
An era of enlightenment and progress 

Has taught us to appreciate thy w^orth ; 
Look down and guide us from thy home in heaven 

To nobler deeds than we have ever known ; 
The purest thought — the broader field of action 

Should mark thy people, Moses Mendelssohn! 

Miriam Del Banco. 



647 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Heine 

r^ OD said: "I will make a poet," 
^^ And a soul was sent below 
With the singer's wings of rapture, 
With the sufferer's weight of woe. 

God laid on the eyes the poet's 

Awful gift of second sight, 
On the restless, questioning spirit, 

All the blackness of the night. 

On the bod}', pangs of torture, 

Hell's own pains and love's sharp sting; 
Doubt you woe must dow'r the poet ? 

Hush, draw close and hear him sing! 

A. R. Aldrich. 



Heine 

^OR life nor death had any peace for thee, 

^ Seeing thy mother cast thee forth, a prey 

To wind and water, till we bade thee stay 

And rest, a pilgrim weary of the sea. 

But now it seems that on thine effigy 

Thy very host an impious hand would lay: 
Go then and wander, praising on thy way 

The proud Republic's hospitality! 

Yet oft with us wreathed brow must suffer wrong, 
The sad Enchanter of the land of Weir 
Is still uncrowned, unreverenced, and we fear 
The Lords of Gold above the Lords of Song, 
Were it not strange, then, should we honor more 
The sweet-mouthed singer of a foreign shore? 

George Sylvester Viereck. 



648 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



Heinrich Heine 

I 

CON of a mystic race, he came 

^ When Europe faltered at one name, 

And, to his youthful eyes, the sun 

Darkened before Napoleon. 

France brought his freedom, but it brought 

To Germany the years that wrought 

Her shame, her bondage, her despair — 

Thus in the quiet Rhineland air 

A deep division drew apart 

The fighter's and the poet's heart. 

H 

The poet heard the linden croon 
Tragic old ditties to the moon. 
And sang with clear authentic voice 
The music of his country's choice. 
He knew the forest of romance. 
The haunting wail, the elfin dance. 
The wounded heart, the magic lance, 
And first on German Islands he 
Heard echoes of the Odyssey 
Sonorous in the Northern Sea. 

Ill 

Then, as he dreamed, the loud world's brood 

Cried out, the visionary mood 

Broke, and the poet in his fear 

Bade poisoned arrows sing and sear. 

God touched him. From his couch of pain 

He sang, he fought, and in his strain 

Thunder of olden battles stirred 

By prophets in Judea heard. 

God touched him, but his long repose 

Is broken still by clamorous foes. 

649 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

IV 

Yet battle dies, and song alone 

With the Eternal is at one — 

Great verse that is the warder of 

Justice and wisdom, truth and love, 

And of that beauty in all lands, 

Not seen of eyes, not made with hands, 

Whose harmony can so control 

The sanctuary of the soul, 

That we must know its prophets still 

The child of a diviner will. 

LuDwiG Lewisohn. 

To Heinrich Heine 

A WAKE to lyric rapture once again, 
^^ Great German bard! Not in resurgent i 
France " 

Shall thy proud spirit rally from its trance 
But in the Rhineland where the sabres glance ; 
Where spring to arms, each day, a myriad men. — . 
There now they need thy patriotic pen: 
Its caustic wit, so dagger-keen and bold 
That erstwhile smote with such relentless zeal 
Yet had the art of tenderness to heal. 
Once more thy sweet-voiced Lorelei shall steal 
Into the nation's heart, whose tales were told 
By thee, dear Troubador, in rhymes of gold — 
And then thy matchless minstrelsy shall bring 
The Fatherland swift healing on its wing. 

George Alexander Kohut. 

Ernest Renan . 

^'HTRUTH is an idol," spake the Christian age. < 

"Thou shalt not worship Truth divorced from 
Love. 
Truth is but God's reflection: Look above!" 
So Pascal wrote, and still we trace the page. 



650 



J 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

"Truth is divine," said Plato, "but on high 
She dwells, and few may be her ministers, 
For truth is sad and lonely and diverse ; 

Heal thou the weakling with a generous lie!" 

But thou in Truth delightedst! Thou of soul 
As subtle-shimmering as the rainbow mist, 
And still in all her service didst persist. 

For me One truth thou livedst, but the Whole. 

Mary Darmesteter. 



The Jews' Cemetery on the Lido 

A TRACT of land swept by the salt seafoam, 
^^ Fringed with acacia flowers and billowy deep, 
In meadow-grasses, where tall poppies sleep, 
And bees athirst for wilding honey roam. 
How many a bleeding heart hath found its home. 
Under these hillocks which the seamews sweep ! 
Here knelt an outcast race to curse and weep. 
Age after age, 'neath heaven's unanswering dome. 

Sad is the place and solemn. Grave by grave, 
Lost in the dunes, with rank weeds overgrown, 
Pines in abandonment ; as though unknown, 

Uncared for, lay the dead, whose records pave 
This path neglected ; each forgotten stone 

Wept by no mourner but the moaning wave. 

John Addington Symonds. 



H 



The Jewish Cemetery at Newport 

OW strange it seems! These Hebrews in their 



graves, 

Close by the street of this fair seaport town. 
Silent beside the never-silent waves. 

At rest in all this moving up and down ! 

651 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleep 
Wave their broad curtains in the south-wind's 
breath, 

While underneath such leafy tents they keep 
The long, mysterious Exodus of Death. 

And these sepulchral stones, so old and brown, 
That pave with level flags their burial-place, 

Seem like the tablets of tlie Law, thrown-down 
And broken by Moses at the mountain's base. 

The very names recorded here are strange, 
Of foreign accent, and of different climes; 

Alvares and Rivera interchange 

With Abraham and Jacob of old times. 

^'Blessed be God! for he created death!" 

The mourners said, "and Death is rest and peace" ; 
Then added, in the certainty of faith, 

"And giveth Life that nevermore shall cease." 

Closed are the portals of their Synagogue, 
No Psalms of David now the silence break, 

No Rabbi reads the ancient Decalogue 
In the grand dialect the Prophets spake. 

Gone are the living, but the dead remain. 

And not neglected ; for a hand unseen, 
Scattering its bounty, like a summer rain. 

Still keeps their graves and their remembrance green. 

How came they here? What burst of Christian hate, 

What persecution, merciless and blind, 
Drove o'er the sea — that desert desolate — 

These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind? 

They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure, 
Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and mire; 

Taught in the school of patience to endure 
The life of anguish and the death of fire. 

652 



I 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

All their lives long, with the unleavened bread 
And bitter herbs of exile and its fears, 

The wasting famine of the heart they fed, 

And slaked its thirst with marah of their tears. 

Anathema maranatha ! w^as the cry 

That rang from town to town, from street to street ; 
At every gate the accursed Mordecai 

Was mocked and jeered, and spurned by Christian 
feet. 

Pride and humiliation hand in hand 

Walked with them through the world where'er they 
went; 
Trampled and beaten were they as the sand, 

And yet unshaken as the continent. 

For in the background figures vague and vast 
Of patriarchs and of prophets rose sublime, 

And all the great traditions of the Past 
They saw reflected in the coming time. 

And thus forever with reverted look 

The mystic volume of the world they read, 

Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book, 
Till life became a Legend of the Dead. 

But ah ! what once has been shall be no more ! 

The groaning earth in travail and in pain 
Brings forth Its races, but does not restore, 

And the dead nations never rise again. 

Henry Wads worth Longfellow. 



France's Shame 

' I 'ALK not of Christian France, lest mantling shame 
**■ Glow In Its fiery blush to burning flame. 
And on the altar of the wide world's ire 
Doom French injustice to eternal fire. 

653 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

With public scorn we loath the vengeful lust 

In which French soldiers have betrayed their trust, 

And bide the time when in the coming years 

Her infamy is purged with bloody tears. 

All nations call for justice to the Jew, 

Condemn the false, and magnify the true. 

'Tis Israel's triumph, never more complete; 

"Conviction" has brought victory, to France, defeat. 

The world judges, France now bears the shame 

And Dreyfus glories in unsullied name. 

Let God avenge and man restrain his hate, 

Jehovah's justice is immaculate; 

Abide in faith and in the end we must 

See France degraded, humbled in the dust. 

B. B. Usher. 



To Dreyfus Vindicated 

C OLDIER of Justice — fighting with her sword 

^ Since thine was broken! Who need now despair 

To lead a hope forlorn against the throng? 

For what did David dare 

Before Goliath worthy this compare — 

Thou in the darkness fronting leagued wrong? 

What true and fainting cause shall not be heir 

Of all thy courage — more than miser's hoard? 

In times remote, when some preposterous ill 
Man has not yet imagined, shall be King, 

While comfortable Freedom nods — 
And Three shall meet to slay the usurping thing. 
Thy name recalled shall clinch their potent will, 
And as they cry, "He won — what greater odds!" 

They shall become as gods. 

j|!ft jilfc ^ ^ ^ 

Ours, too, thy champions! Who shall dare to say 
The sordid time doth lack of chivalry. 
When men thus all renounce, all cast away, 

654 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

To walk with martyrs through a flaming sea! 
Picquart! — how jealously will Life patrol 
The paths of peril whither he is sent. 

Zola ! — too early gone ! 
Whose taking even Death might well repent, 

Though 'twas to enrich that greater Pantheon 
Where dwell the spirits of the brave of soul. 

* * * * * 

Envoi 

Oh ! tremble, all oppressors, where ye be — 

Throne, Senate, mansion, mart, or factory; 

One against many, many against few! 

Ye poor, once crushed, that crush your own anew; 

Ye vulgar rich, now risen from the mud, 

Despoilers of the flower in the bud : 

For justice is the orbit of God's day. 

And He hath promised that He will repay. 

Robert Underwood Johnson. 



Dreyfus 

I 

A MAN stood stained ! France was one Alp of hate, 
''*■ Pressing upon him with its iron weight. 
In all the circle of the ancient sun. 
There was no voice to speak for him — not one. 
In all the world of men there was no sound 
But of a sword flung broken to the ground. 
" 'Tis done!" they said, "unless a felon soul 
Can tear the leaves out of the Judgment Scroll." 

Hell laughed a little season, then behold 
How one by one the gates of God unfold ! 
Swiftly a sword by Unseen Forces hurled, 
And then a m.an rising against the world ! 

655 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

II 

Oh, import deep as life is, deep as time! 
There is a Something sacred and sublime, 
Moving behind the worlds, beyond our ken, 
Weighing the stars, weighing the deeds of men. 

Take heart, O world of sorrow, and be strong: 
There is One greater than the whole world's wrong, 
Be hushed before the high, benignant Power 
That goes untarrying to the reckoning hour. 

O men that forge the. fetter, it is vain; 
There is a Still Hand stronger than your chain, 
'Tis no avail to bargain, sneer, and nod, 
And shrug the shoulder for reply to God. 

Edwin Markham. 



Dreyfus 

PRANCE has no dungeons in her island tomb 

'■■ So deep that she may hide her injustice there; 

The cry of innocence, despite her care, 
Despite her roll of drums, her cannon's boom. 
Is heard wherever human hearts have room 

For sj^mpathy; a sob upon the air. 

Echoed and re-echoed everywhere. 

It swells and swells, a prophecy of doom, 

Thou latest victim of an ancient hate! 
In agony so awfully alone, 
The world forgets thee not, nor can forget. 
Such martyrdoms she feels to be her own, 
And sees involved in thine her larger fate; 

She Questions, and thy foes shall answer yet. 

Florence Earle Coates. 



656 



THE MODERN PERIOD 
Let Us Forget 

'T'HE shore once won, who counts the waves? 
■* Each hand, each oar, each spar that saves, 
Record in heart — enshrine in song; 
But all the weary, witless wrong, 
Let us forget. 

Father forgive them ! Thus prayed He, 
Who drained the cup of Calvary, 
The prisoner of Devil's Isle 
May happy ask — erect the while — 
Let us forget. 

We "witnesses" to ''shew His praise" 
Must shew it forth in divers ways, 
By light of fame, or light of fires, — 
All lower aims — all low desires, 
Let us forget. 

The France of Picquart, Labori 

And Zola. That is the France we see; 

The foolish few who basely chose 

In honor's name, dishonor — those 

Let us forget. K. M. 

The God of Israel 

TTHE God of Israel sate on high, 
**■ . And methought He mocked the dead; 
The twisted limbs of agony, 

The staring eyes of dread. 
The lips that froze on a dying prayer 

And blessed Him as they bled. 

The God of Israel sate on high. 

And He mocked His people's trust; 

He heard the tyrant's blasphemy. 
He saw the Injustice just; 

He saw the valley strewn with death 
And the wind that blew its dust, 

657 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

I raised my voice and cried aloud 

(He smiled as if He heard) : 
"Behold, dishonour Is their shroud 

For that they keep Thy Word : 
They strangle them with thongs of shame 

Or hew them with the sword. 

"With stripes and steel and bitter scorn 
They trample down their pride; 

The silent souls of the yet unborn 
Lie maimed In the soul of the bride; 

In bitterness their hearts awake, 
In bitterness abide. 

"In bitterness, in bitterness 

They gaze upon the past, 
Nor worship they Thy Word the less, 

Nor scorn Thy Word at last. 
Who, free within Thy bounteous air, 

In bonds of hate are cast. 

"For bonds that cleave the flesh are ill, 

But other bonds are base 
That cleave the heart's benignant will, 

Or darken for a space 
The eyes of reason and of right." 

Yea, thus I cried apace. 

The God of Israel smiled on high 

As on a babbling child ; 
But I saw the bays of victory, 

And Justice undefiled. 
And Mind and Honour hand In hand, 

And Envy reconciled. 

The Past had doffed Its robe of pain, 

Flung off Its mourning-hood, 
When Joy upraised her veil again 

And found the Future good ; 
She raised the folds of her lustrous cloak 

There — clear-eyed Duty stood. 

C. M. KOHAN. 

658 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



The Jews in Russia 

r^ROM town and village to a wood, strlpt bare, 

■*■ As they of their possessions, see them throng, 

Above them grows a cloud ; it moves along, 

As flee they from the circling wolf pack's glare. 

Is it their Broken-Shadow of despair, 

The looming of their life of cruel wrong 
For countless ages? No; their faith is strong 

In their Jehovah ; that huge cloud is prayer. 

A flash of light, and black the despot lies. 

What thunder round the world ! 
'Tis transport's strain 

Proclaiming loud: **No righteous prayer is vain. 
No God-imploring tears are lost; they rise 

Into a cloud, and in the sky remain, 
Till they draw lightning from Jehovah's eyes." 

Edward Doyle. 



On the Russian Persecution of the Jews 

(^ SON of man, by lying tongues adored, 

^^By slaughterous hands of slaves with feet red-shod 

In carnage deep as Christian ever trod 
Profaned with prayer and sacrifice abhorred 
And incense from the trembling tyrant's horde, 

Brute worshippers or wielders of the rod, 

Most murderous even of all that call thee God, 
Most treacherous even that ever called thee Lord ; 
Face loved of little children long ago. 
Head hated of the priests and rulers then, 

If thou see this, or hear these hounds of thine 

Run ravening as the Gadarean swine, 
Say, was not this thy Passion, to foreknow 

In death's w^orst hour the works of Christian men ? 
Algernon Charles Swinburne. 

659 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Russia and the Jews 

Q MUSCOVITE, blind Is your wrath, with 
^^ Your heel on the Israelite's neck, 
And your hand on that baleful old blade, 

Persecution, 'twere wisdom to reck. 
The Pharaoh's calm warning, Beware! 

Lo, the Pyramids pierce that grey gloom 
Of a desert that is but a waste, by a river 

That is but a tomb, 
Yet the Hebrew abides and is strong. 

Punch. 



The Kishineff Massacre 

/^ LORD, Thy righteous wrath and vengeance pour 
^^ Upon the bloody horde, who in Thy name. 
The sacred name, hath stained with crimson gore 

The Russian land and filled Thy earth with shame. 

Let fall upon their heads the bolts of flame 
To teach the vile oppressor, yet once more 
A living God doth rule the nations o'er — 

A God of strength and might whose hand can tame 
Their hireling hearts and teach their hate restraint. 
Avenge Thy slaughtered sons, O Lord supreme ! 

Their blood doth cry from rock and vale and height ; 
And Thou, to whom the sparrow's piping plaint 
Is poignant as the eagle's piercing scream, 

Will not be deaf, but with Thy thunder smite. 

Rose Strauss. 



On the Massacre 

"V/E heavens, pray for mercy on my head! 
■*■ If God abides in you, and if a way 
To Him exists, which yet I have not found, 
Do you my prayers unto His ear convey! 

660 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

For me, my heart Is dead, and no more prayers 
Are on my lips, for refuge against wrong. 

My strength Is gone, and there Is no more hope. 
How long must we endure, how long, how long? 

Headsman, here Is an axe, arise and slay! 

Behead me like a dog; so let It be! 
You have an arm, an Instrument of death, 

And all the world a scaffold is to me. 

Then let red blood, the blood of old and young, 
Besprinkle your red coat with ruddy gore, 

So that the savage and ensanguined stain 
Shall not be wiped from It forevermore. 

Cursed be he who for revenge cries out! 

For slaying guileless babes a vengeance meet 
Satan himself has never yet devised. 

Then let our blood, poured out beneath your feet, 

Sink penetrating to earth's lowest depths; 

Let blood of those who perished without blame 
Sap and destroy the earth's foundations old — 

The bases deep of wickedness and shame. 

Chayim Nachman Byalik. 



God and His Martyrs 

POR I have hither come, O ye dead bones, 
"*■ To beg of you, forgive me! 
Forgive your God, you that are shamed forever! 
For all your dark and bitter lives forgive me, 
And for your ten times dark and bitter death ! 
For when you stand to-morrow at my threshold. 
When you remind me, when you ask for payment, 
I shall but answer you: "Come, see, Fve nothing!" 
It cries to heaven, I hear It, but I've nothing. 
For I am poor myself, I'm beggared also. 

66i 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And woe and woe and woe is all my worlds ! 
Let all the seven heavens moan for pity. 
To bring such sacrifices all for nothing, 
To live such lives and die such deaths for nothing, 
Not knowing to what end, for what, for what ! 
Her head enwrapped in clouds, my old Shekinah 
Shall sit for evermore and weep for shame; 
And night by night I too will lean from heaven, 
And mourn myself upon your graves. 

Chayim Nachman Byalik. 

The Jewish Martyrs 

r7ROM far Siberia's frozen plains, 

They cry to heaven, they cry to us! 
We hear the clanking of their chains 

And turn away! Not thus, not thus, 
Our fathers, were your hearts made cold 
By lust of power, by greed of gold ! 

They have not feared the scaffold rope. 
Nor cringed for whip or knotted cord ; 

They give up all and keep their hope ; 
They die and call no despot lord ; 

Before the heaven that made men free, 

They testify for liberty. 

Who gave their tyrants leave to smite 
Truth's witnesses with knout or rod? 

Who says such wrongs are in heaven's right, 
He lives before the throne of God, 

And all the blood by despots shed, 

Shall be a curse upon his head ! 

If to our altar one should come. 

With the czar's hounds upon his track. 

Could e'en our buried dead be dumb 
Were we so base to drive him back, 

Were we such craven, venal slaves, 

Among our myriad hero-graves? W. V. B. 

663 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

The Persecuted Jew 

\V7HEN strife is rampant in the world, 
^^ And men and devils loudly cheer; 
The hearts of men have turned to stone, 
And cruel monsters, laugh and sneer. 

In sorrow and the darkest gloom, 
Our brother Jew has suffered long; 

The God of Israel knows His own, 
He their King is great and strong. 

Defend the people, God of hosts. 

Thou God of Israel, grand and great; 

Look down and bless that noble race, 
And lead them to the golden gate. 

Stephen Taylor Dekins. 

In the Name of Jesus of Nazareth 

(Christmas, 1890) 

/^ LOWS once more in the Russian sky, the blood- 
^-'' red dawn of a day of hate — 
Shrills at the Throne of God, the cry of a people that 
faints 'neath its cross's weight. 

Of a people hounded and done to death 

In the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 

Bells are ringing and organs peal ; a thousand choirs 

their hymns upraise; 
Peasant and pope at the altar kneel, and lone, in his 
guarded palace, prays 
The fear-torn despot ; and thus he saith : 
In the name of Jesus of Nazareth : 

''Father in Heaven, thy reign of love come, and Thy 

will on this earth be done, 
Even as it is in Thy courts above. Forgive us, as we 
forgive everyone ; 
And tempt us never, but keep from scath 
In the name of Jesus of Nazareth." 

663 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Up to God's throne with the organ's voice and the 

chime of bells, goes the mob's fierce shout: 
Drowned are the hymns by the horrid noise of curses 
and groans and the thud of knout; 
For the tyrant's prayer is a liar's breath — 
In the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 

Christians, say, shall a savage Tsar blaspheme unchid- 

den the name of Christ? 
Yours, not mine, is this holy war, by your faith in him 
that was sacrificed — 
By your faith that your souls may be saved from 

death 
In the Name of Jesus of Nazareth ! 

One IS the Father — his sons all men. These brothers 

of mine are your brothers, too ; 
Save our brothers, I charge you, then, in their brother's 
name whom the Romans slew — 
In his name, who forgave with his dying breath — 
My brother, Jesus of Nazareth. 



Anonymous. 



How Long? 



T_IOW long, O Lord, shall sobs and sighs 
■*■ ■'■ Re-echo in our ears? 
How long, O Lord, shall groans and cries 
Compel our flowing tears? 

How long, O Lord, shall blood be shed 

Of innocent and pure? 
How long, O Lord, shall deathly dread 

O'er Israel endure? 

How long, O Lord, shall darkness reign, 

And murder rage unchecked ? 
How long, O Lord, by crimson stain 

Our fateful page be flecked ? 

664 



T 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

How long, O Lord, shall justice sleep 

And Truth her head abase? 
How long, O Lord, into the deep 

Shall sink thy chosen race? 

How long, O Lord, in exile yet, 

Thy people, must they pine? 
How long, O Lord, wilt Thou forget 

The mercy that is Thine? 

How long, O Lord, until the morn 

Of peace and bliss supreme. 
When Thy own glory shall adorn 

The Zion of our dream? 

Israel Cohen. 



Israel in Russia 

HOU art but One! O God to Whom we bow 
In adoration ; 



E'en as in Egypt, Thou wilt hear us now — 
Thy Chosen Nation. 

Much have we sinned ; far from Thy face have fled, 

By passion driven. 
Deep our repentance; Thou myself hast said 

We are forgiven. 

Empires of old upon us heaped their chains, 

Burthens and lashes; 
Thy thunders rolled — and of their might remains 

Stubble and ashes! 

Still those we taught to hold Thy Name in awe 

Smite and berate us; 
We are the leash that binds them to Thv Law — 

Wherefore they hate us) 

665 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Vengeance is Thine ! yet Thine is mercy, too. 

"Shield us, but grieve them 
Not!" be our prayer: "They know not what they do. 

Father! forgive them!" 

Arthur Guiterman. 



The Massacre of the Jews 

A VVAIL comes o'er the swelling seas 
^^ From a far land, 'neath eastern skies. 
And on the night wind's solemn dirge, 

We shuddering hear the shrieks, the cries, 
Of that devoted band, who fell 

To glut the Moslem's savage hate, 
That remnant of Judah's tribes. 

The victims of remorseless fate ! 

What was their crime? Had they rebelled 

Against the Sultan's despot power? 
Had they with murder in their hearts 

Nursed into bloom the Blood-Red Flower 
Of war? Say, was it theirs to throw 

The olive branch of Peace aside. 
And see all sweet affections drift 

To death on the ensanguined tide? 

They 'neath their vines and fig-trees dwelt, 

Pursuing each his peaceful trade. 
Chanting at eve their psalms of praise. 

Molesting none, of none afraid ! 
And while the cheerful home fires blazed 

At eve, some Patriarch's voice was heard. 
While little children gathered round 

To list with awe the sacred word ! 

But hark ! what 'larum fills the air ! 

A mighty roar as tho' the sea 
Had burst its bound engulfing earth. 

And holding fierce, wild revelry! 

666 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Wake, Israel ! Rouse ! Your hour is come ! 

The crazed fanatics thirst for blood ; 
A flash ! — A glare ! — Now ruins mark 

Where late your peaceful dwellings stood ! 
Demoniac yells! fierce glittering steel! 

The green turf red with many a stain, 
The maddened populace rushing on, 

Trampling like beasts o'er heaps of slain. 

Ah, face the tiger in his lair 

When thirsting-mad for human prey, 
But not these zealots in their rage, 

He is more pitiful than they. 
Their furiest passions all ablaze 

These blood-hounds lust for human game, 
Seeming like devils loosed on earth, 

For they are men only in name. 

No mercy in that zeal-crazed throng; 

The infant from its mother's breast 
Is torn with blood-stained hands and slain, 

Her shrieks enjoyed with fiendish zest. 
And from the mother's faithful heart, 

That would have died her child to save, 
The life-blood flows, a sabre thrust, 

Yet she could bless the hand that gave. 

Better to die than thus to live! 

With bleeding heart and maddened brain. 
She sees her husband fall ; her sire. 

His gray hairs dashed with crimson stain, 
Nor age, nor sex were spared. O ! God, 

Can such fiends curse thy beauteous earth? 
And what their victim's high offense ? 

The only crime of Jewish birth! 

The crime of following in the path 

Their pious fathers early trod. 
Marked by One, who on Sinai's heights 

Revealed Himself a living God ; 

667 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

True, they knelt not to greet the sun, 

Nor made the Moslem's creed their own, 

Nor forced they their belief on man. 
But asked the privilege alone 

Of serving their Jehovah — God, 

As Abraham and Moses taught. 
Their simple worship injured none. 

And they no controversy sought; 

! Israel ! People of my God, 

When will thy weary wanderings cease, 
O ! when by Jordan's quiet wave, 

Thy scattered remnant dwell in peace? 

When will base calumny and wrong 

Cease Judah to oppress thee more, 
When will the wilderness bloom again 

On Palestina's sea-girt shore. 
When will our Hebrew maids once more 

Chant Miriam's glad triumphant song? 
The winds and waves swell with the cry, 

"How long, our Father, O! how long!" 

R. A. Levy. 
How Long, Lord? 

IN the weary night they come to me, 
*' The tears that I left unshed, 
When I trudged the thorny wilderness 
With the sun-flame overhead. 

1 lie awake in the friendly night. 
My soul too numb to pray. 

Enjoying the cool of its velvet black 
In the dread of the coming day. 

For the day must come and the sting of it, 

As I bend to the endless road, 
The light must come and the pain of it — 

The bite of the lashing goad. 

668 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

But this I know as I reel along 

To the nations' hue and cr)^, 
A burning truth in the hand of God; 

I know that I must not die. 

They say my soul is twisted and warped, 

My ways are cringing and mean, 
That I worship the bulk of the calf of gold, 

That my hands are not white and clean; 
They say — but a thousand reasons hold 

To stalk the quarry then 
When the lust for blood is hunger-felt 

By the beast that dwells in men. 

When Kindness is taught at the end of a rope, 

And Love to the music of groans ; 
WTien Charity masks in a cloak of flame. 

And Mercy in falling stones — 
What wonder the balm for the spirit fails 

When the wounds are kept so fresh 
Through countless years of active hate 

In the rack of the tortured flesh? 

I have ceased to long for the clasp of Love, 

To dream of the smile of a friend, 
I grip my trusty wander-stafif 

In a journey without an end. 
My faith is strong as the primal rocks. 

And deep as my tearless woes; 
I am Job of the nations — heir of wrongs. 

But why — Jehovah knows. 

Elias Lieberman. 

In Exile 

'T'WILIGHT is here, soft breezes bow the grass, 
'*' Day's sounds of various toil break slowly off, 
The yoke-freed oxen low, the patient ass 

Dips his dry nostril in the cool, deep trough. 

669 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Up from the prairie the tanned herdsmen pass 
With frothy pails, guiding with voices rough 
Their udder-lightened kine. Fresh smells of earth, 
The rich, black furrows of the glebe send forth. 

After the Southern day of heavy toil. 

How good to lie, with limbs relaxed, brows bare 
To evening's fan, and watch the smoke-wreaths coil 

Up from one's pipe-stem through the rayless air. 
So deem these unused tillers of the soil. 

Who stretched beneath the shadowing oak-tree, stare 
Peacefully on the star-unfolding skies. 
And name their life unbroken paradise. 

The hounded stag that has escaped the pack, 
And pants at ease within a thick-leaved dell ; 

The unimprisoned bird that finds the track 

Through sun-bathed space, to where his fellows 
dwell ; 

The martyr, granted respite from the rack, 

The death-doomed victim pardoned from his cell, — 

Such only know the joy these exiles gain, — 

Life's sharpest rapture is surcease of pain. 

Strange faces theirs, where through the Orient sun 
Gleams from the eyes and glows athwart the skin. 

Grave lines of studious thought and purpose run 
From curl-crowned forehead to dark-bearded chin. 

And over all the seal is stamped thereon 
Of anguish branded by a world of sin. 

In fire and blood through ages on their name. 

Their seal of glory and the Gentiles' shame. 

Freedom to love the law that Moses brought, 
To sing the songs of David, and to think 

The thoughts Gabirol to Spinoza taught, 
Freedom to dig the common earth, to drink 

The universal air — for this they sought 
Refuge o'er wave and continent, to link 

Egypt w^'th Texas in their mystic chain, 

And truth's perpetual lamp forbid to wane. 

670 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Hark ! through the quiet evening air, their song 

Floats forth with wild sweet rhythm and glad re- 
frain. 

They sing the conquest of the spirit strong, 
The soul that wTests the victory from pain ; 

The noble joys of manhood that belong 

To comrades and to brothers. In their strain 

Rustle of palms and Eastern streams one hears. 

And the broad prairie melts in mist of tears. 

Emma Lazarus. 

A Cry from Russia 

DROTHERS, my brothers — you that are free 
^-^ In the golden lands, beyond the sea. 
Are you blind that you do not heed the scars 
Of my futile hands as they beat the bars? 
Are you deaf that you do not heed the cry 
Of the Little People who will not die ? 
Who will not die though with fear 
Without their Ghetto walls. Ah, hear 
The anguished cry of the mother of sons 
Who are spat on thus by the lordly ones: 
"Ye may not labor. Ye have no goal. 
Back to your hovels! Herd as the swine! 
Be eaten with fear to your very soul !" 
This is the birth of the coward's whine. 
Brothers, my brothers, the days are long 
For the wretched one who does no wrong, 
But to live through beggary, misery — aye 
Worse than these — a Jew till he die. 
For he sucked, with the milk at his mother's breast, 
Patient for scorn and patient for jest, 
Wounds of the body and wounds of the soul 
Till a day when the Lord God made him whole 
The shining day he will bless the pain 
That has brought the Jew to his own again. 
He will bless the pain. But brothers mine 
Easy for you not to herd as swine ; 

671 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Prosperous, florishing — kith and kin, 
Easy for you to stay clean within. 
But, O my Brothers beyond the sea, 
The days are long and bitter for me. 

Hermine Schwed. 



To Russia 

\Y7HO tamed your lawless Tartar blood? 
^^ What David bearded in her den 
The Russian bear in ages when 

You strode your black, unbridled stud, 
A skin-clad savage of your steppes? 
Why, one who now -sits low and weeps, 
Why, one who now wails out to you, — 
The Jew, the Jew, the homeless Jew. 

Who girt the thews of your young prime 
And bound your fierce divided force? 
Why, who but Moses shaped your course 

United down the grooves of time? 
Your mighty millions all today 
The hated, homeless Jew obey. 
Who taught' all poetry to you ? 
The Jew, the Jew, the hated Jew. 

Who taught you tender Bible tales 
Of honey-lands of milk and wine? 
Of happy, peaceful Palestine? 

Of Jordan's holy harvest vales? 
Who gave the patient Christ? I say 
Who gave the Christian creed ? Yea, yea. 
Who gave your very God to you ? 
Your Jew! Your Jew! Your hated Jew! 

Joaquin Miller. 



672 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



The Slaughter of the Jews 

prOOLS who kill for the lust of blood, fiends of the 

"*• slaughter pen, 

Who wreak red malice on women and babes and gray 

and defenceless men ; 
Murderers, thugs, assassins, who, e'en in religion's 

name, 
Dare the work of the ghouls to do, and crawl in your 

bestial shame — 
This in the name of religion. Why, fools who are less 

than clod. 
From the Jew you borrowed your altar, from the Jew 

you filched your God. 
His was the great Jehovah whom your churchly rites 

attest, 
And his was the wondrous Bible that shone on your 

darkened West. 

His David still is singing. 

Your souls oppressed to thrill. 
And Sinai's voice is ringing: 

"Thou shalt not, shalt not kill!" 
Murderers! thugs! assassins! sodden and ingrate crew! 
Most of the best ye now disdain was learned of the 

hated Jew ! 

In temples of desecration his psalms ye have mouthed 

today; 
Then turned from the hollow praises to slaughter and 

kill and slay; 
Ye have mourned with his Jeremiah, as great was your 

need to do. 
But if mourning fostered brute alone, small was the 

gain to you. 
"Why should ye be stricken any more?" Isaiah moan- 

eth still. 
But all that ye learn from the broken words is kill — 

and kill — and kill ! 

673 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And Rachel still is mourning that her children are no 

more, 
While your hearts are mad with malice and your hands 
are red with gore. 

Still rolls the awful thunder 
O'er Sinai's darkened hill, 
While still — oh, deed of wonder! — 
Ye kill— and kill— and kill ! 
Fools who are less than brutish, tyranny's pestilent 

crew, 
A beast may spring on his master — and ye do murder 
the Jew. 

When 5^our forbears sat in their frozen dens and mum- 
bled their rotten bones 
From Palestine echoed northward the great Jehovah's 

tones. 
The God of the Jew had spoken, and your ancestor 

heard and knew, 
And his first dim knowledge of truth and right he 

learned of the hated Jew. 
Aye, more! From Nazareth came one day the Man 

who is thine and mine. 
And he set in the soul of the brutish man the germ 

of a thought divine, 
And the germ took root in the soul of man, and ever 

it bloomed and grew. 
And the Christ whom your crimsoned hands do flout 

was a Jew and the son of a Jew, 

His heart for the sad world bleeding, 

He loved and forgave us still ; 
And yet, that lesson unheeding, 
Ye kill— and kill— and kill ! 
Fools who are less than brutish, tyranny's pestilent 

crew. 
All that the wc rid holds dearest is slaughtered in him 

— the Jew. 

A. T. Waterhouse. 



674 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



The Crowing of the Red Cock 

A CROSS the Eastern sky has glowed 
^~^ The flicker of a blood-red dawn, 
Once more the clarion cock has crowed, 

Once more the sword of Christ is drawn. 
A million burning rooftrees light 
The world-wide path of Israel's flight. 

Where is the Hebrew's fatherland? 

The folk of Christ is sore bestead ; 
The Son of Man is bruised and banned, 

Nor finds whereon to lay his head. 
His cup is gall, his meat is tears, 
His passion lasts a thousand years. 

Each crime that wakes in man the beast, 

Is visited upon his kind. 
The lust of mobs, the greed of priest, 

The tyranny of kings, combined 
To root his seed from earth again, 
His record is one cry of pain. 

When the long roll of Christian guilt 
Against his sires and kin is known, 

The flood of tears, the life-blood spilt, 
The agony of ages shown, 

What oceans can the stain remove. 

From Christian law and Christian love? 



Nay, close the book ; not now, not here, 
The hideous tale of sin narrate. 

Reechoing in the martyr's ear, 

Even he might nurse revengeful hate. 

Even he might turn in wrath sublime. 

With blood for blood and crime for crime. 

675 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Coward ? Not he, who faces death, 
Who singly against worlds has fought. 

For what? A name he may not breathe, 
For liberty of prayer and thought. 

The angry sword he will not whet, 

His nobler task is — to forget. 

Emma Lazarus. 



A Hymn for the Relief of Israel 

VV/HEN Israel's sons in Egypt groaned, 

'' Beneath the proud oppressor's yoke, 

I'he God of Love his children owned, 
The Lord of Might their bondage broke. 

With mighty arm and outstretched hand, 
By signs and wonders great and sore, 

He led them forth from Egypt's land, 
He gave them rest on Caanan's shore. 

Now spread through far and distant lands. 
Yet never lost — enchained, yet free — 

To Thee they lift their suppliant hands, 
And raise them with their hearts to Thee. 

Thy word still lives — that word which taught 
The mouth that cursed Thy flock to bless; 

That word which their salvation wrought. 
That faith which still their lips confess. 

O ! turn the hearts of those who still 

Tread down Thy living sanctuary. 
Send forth the mandate of Thy will. 

And set Thy chosen people free ! 

Canon Jenkins. 



676 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

To the Czar — a Prophecy 

T_rOW canst thou face thy Maker, how canst thou 

ever dare 
With all the guilt upon thy head to turn to Him in 

prayer ? 
Thou rearest thy religion to cloak thy evil deeds; 
The torture thou inflicted on those of other creeds, 
The exilings, the pogroms, the persecutions all, 
Thou plannest with thy minions, within thy palace 

wall. 

To thy corrupt officialdom thou givest a free rein 
To murder, pillage, harass thy subjects for its gain. 
With olden-time barbarity, with cruelty unsurpassed. 
Thou rulest o'er an Empire, so wonderful, so vast, 
Whose boundless wealth lies buried for ages, 'neath the 

soil. 
Whose undeveloped resources wait but for honest toil. 
While sore distress and famine go stalking in the land. 
All enterprise, initiative staj^ed by a tyrant's hand. 

Bright shines the torch of progress in every land but 

thine, 
Illumining every pathway that leads to Freedom's 

shrine; 
In thy realm superstition and ignorance hold sway, 
Grim allies of oppression that darken every way; 
That foster crime and vices of all the vilest sort 
And make of human beings a beastly dangerous horde. 
Thou art a shame, a byword among the nations all, 
Thy subjects' execrations hang o'er thee like a pall! 
***** 

How long wilt thou, O Russia, thy cruel burdens bear? 
How long wilt thou meekly succumb to dull despair? 
Rise up, throw off thy shackles, strike for the right 

to live! 
For freedom, justice, tolerance, thy people's wrongs 

retrieve 1 

677 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And thou wflt surely triumph, for tyrants cowards 

are, 
They shrink beneath the radiance of Liberty's bright 

star. 
For thee will dawn an era of brighter, happier days. 
And all thy lamentations will change to songs of 

praise; 

The present chaos, misrule, which now so hopeless 

seem, 
Will then be but a memory, a nightmare in a dream, 
Once more among the nations thou wilt then take thy 

place. 
And with their march toward progress and culture 

keep apace. 
Thy people will be blessed o'er all thy broad domain. 
When Law and Order shall prevail, and Peace su- 
preme* shall reign ! 

Ida (Mrs. Isidor) Straus. 



To Forgive is Divine 

I7ATHER of Mercies, and all Human Love, 
Who peereth far beyond our sullen skies, 
Remember all the smile-borne agonies. 

And stubborn scars of saintly men who strove 

With glaives of griefless Faith, in dyke and grove. 
And byre and barn, 'gainst the barbarities 
Of priest and mob, and the atrocities 

By traitors wreaked in passion for their dove. 

Remember not those loathsome deeds, O Lord ! 
But spread the light of Wisdom in the hearts 
Of Rulers, and of Nations in those parts. 

Where ripens knowledge of Thine Holy Word, 
That in our day, Israel may once more 
Have Peace, and Sunshine, as in days of yore. 

M. L. R. Breslar. 

678 



THE MODERN PERIOD 
''Blood'' V. ''Bullion'' 

"VY/ELL then, it now appears you need my help, 
^^ Go to then: you come to me, and you say, 
'Shylock, we would have moneys' — you say so ; 
You that did void your rheum upon my beard. 
And foot me, as you spurn a stranger cur 
Over your threshold : moneys Is your suit. 
What should I say to you ? Should I not say 
'Hath a dog money?' " 

''Merchant of Venice," Act I, Scene 3. 

"With bated breath and whispering humbleness?" 
Not so ! There comes a season when the stress 
Of insolent and exacting tyranny 
Makes the most patient turn. 

Autocracy, 
Without the despot's vaunted virtue, pride, 
Shows small Indeed. Can Power lay aside 
Its swaggering part, and low petition make 
(Driven by those Treasury thirsts which never slake) 
For help from those It harries? Pharaoh's scourge 
Was the taskmaster's weapon used to urge 
The Hebrew bondsmen to their tale of toil. 
But they round whom the Russian's knouts' thongs coil 
Are of the breed of the Russian palm 
Can make petition to. Could triumphs balm 
The wounds of ages, here were babes indeed ; 
But blood revolts. 

Race of the changeless creed. 
And ever-shifting sojourn, Shakespeare's type 
Deep meaning hides, which, when the world Is ripe 
For wider wisdom, when the palsying curse 
Of prejudice, the canker of the purse. 
And blind blood-hatred, shall a little lift, 
Will clearller shine, like sunburst through a rift 
In congregated cloud-wracks. Shylock stands 
Badged with black shame in all the baser lands. 
Use him, and — spit on him! That's Gentile wont; 
Make him gold-conduit, and befoul the font, — 

679 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

That's the true despot-plan through all the days, 

And cackling Gratianos chorus praise. 

"The Jew shall have all justice." Shall he so? 

The tyrant drains his gold, then bids him — **Go!" 

Shylock? The name bears insult in its sound; 

But he was nobler than the curs who hound 

The patient Hebrew from his home and drive 

Deathward the stronger souls they dread alive. 

Shylock? So brand him, boors and babbling wags, 

Who scorn him, yet would share his money-bags; 

Who hate him, yet can stoop to such appeal ! 

Beneath his meekness there's a soul of steel. 

High-featured, amply-bearded, see he stands 

Facing the Autocat; those sinewy hands 

Shaped but for clutching — so his slanderers say — 

The huckster bait can coldly put away 

''Blood against bullion." The Jew-baiting band 

Howl frantic execration o'er the land; 

Malign and menace, pillage, persecute; 

Though the heart's hot, the mouth must fain be mute. 

The edict fulminates, the goad pursues; 

Proscription, deprivation, — aye, they use 

All the old tortures, nor are then content. 

But crown the work with ruthless banishment. 

And then — then the proud Muscovite seeks grace, 

And gold, from kinsmen of the harried race! 

"He would have moneys" from the Hebrew hoard, 

To swell his state, or whet his warlike sword ; 

Perchance buy heavier scourges for the backs 

Of lesser Hebrews, whom his wolfish packs 

Of salaried minions hunt. 

Take back thine hand. 
Imperious Autocrat, and understand 
Gold buys not, rules not, serves not, salves not all. 
Blood speaks — in favour of the helpless thrall 
Of tyranny. Here's no tame Shylock : he 
Shall not bend low, and in a bondsman's key, 
Make o'er his money-bags with unctuous grace 
To an enthroned enslaver of his race, 

680 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

"Well then, it now appears you need my help" 
(You — whose trained curs at my poor kinsmen yelp!) 
"What should I say to you ? Should I not say, 
'Hath a dog money?'" Blood's response is — "Nay!" 

Punch. 

The Jews of Bucharest 

<<nrAKE heed; the stairs are worn and damp!" 
'*' My soft-tongued southern guardian said, 
And held more low his twinkling lamp 

To light my cautious, downward tread. 
Where that uncertain radiance fell 
The bat in startled circles flew; 
Sole tenant of the sunless cell 
Our fathers fashioned for the Jew. 

Yet, painted on the aching gloom, 

I saw a hundred dreadful eyes, 
As out of their forgotten tomb 

Its pallid victims seemed to rise. 
With fluttered heart and crisping hair, 

I stood those crowding ghosts amid, 
And thought what raptures of despair 

The soundless granite walls had hid. 

I saw their arsenal of crime: 

The rack, the scourge, the gradual fire, 
Where priestly hangmen of old time 

Watched their long-tortured prey expire, 
Then by dim warders darkling led 

Through many a rocky corridor. 
Like one that rises from the dead, 

I passed into the light once more. 

And does a careless brother say 
We stir this ancient dust in vain. 

When palaced Bucharest to-day 
Sees the same devil loose again? 

68 1 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE | 



Again her busy highways wake 

To the old persecuting cry 
Of men who for their Master's sake 

His chosen kindred crucify. 

There oft the midnight hours are loud 

With echoes of pursuing feet; 
As fired with bright zeal the crowd 

Goes raving down the Ghetto's street; 
The broken shutter's rending crash 

That lets the sudden riot in, 
And shows by those red torches' flash, 

The shrinking fugitive within. 

But here are tales of deeper shame! 

Of law insulted and defied. 
While Force, usurping Justice's name, 

Takes boldly the oppressor's side. 
The bread whose bitterness so long, 

These sons of hated race have known; 
Familiar, oft-repeated wrong 

That turns the living heart to stone. 

Still Zion City lies forlorn : 

And still the Stranger in our gates, 
A servant to the younger born, 

For his long-promised kingdom waits. 
O, Brethren of the outer court. 

Entreat him well and speak him fair; 
The form that makes your thoughtless sport 

Our coming Lord hath deigned to wear. 

Edward Sydney Tybee. 

To Carmen Sylva (Queen of Roumania) 

/^H, that the golden lyre divine 
^^ Whence David smote flame-tones were mine ! 
Oh, that the silent harp which hung 
Untuned, unstrung, 

682 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Upon the willows by the river, 
Would throb beneath my touch and quiver 
With the old song-enchanted spell 
Of Israel! 



Oh, that the large prophetic Voice 

Would make my reed-piped throat its choice ! 

All ears should prick, all hearts should spring 

To hear me sing 
The burden of the isles, the word 
Assyria knew, Damascus heard. 
When, like the wind, while cedars shake, 

Isaiah spake. 



For I would frame a song to-day 
Winged like a bird to cleave its way 
O'er land and sea that spread between. 

To where a Queen 
Sits with a triple coronet. 
Genius and Sorrow both have set 
Their diadems above the gold — 

A Queen three-fold ! 



To her the forest lent its lyre. 

Hers are the sylvan dews, the fire 

Of Orient suns, the mist-wreathed gleams 

Of mountain streams. 
She, the imperial Rhine's own child, 
Takes to her heart the wood-nymph wild, 
The gipsy Pelech, and the wide 

White Danube's tide. 



She who beside an infant's bier 
Long since resigned all hope to hear, 
The sacred name of "Mother" bless 
Her childlessness, 

633 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Now from a people's sole acclaim 
Receives the heart-vibrating name, 
And ^'Mother, Mother, Mother!" fills 
The echoing hills. 

Yet who is he who pines apart. 
Estranged from that maternal heart, 
Ungraced, unfriended, and forlorn, 

The butt of scorn? 
An alien in his land of birth, 
An outcast from his brethren's earth, 
Albeit with theirs his blood mixed well 

When Plevna fell ? 

When all Roumania's chains were riven, 
When unto all his sons was given 
The hero's glorious reward. 

Reaped by the sword, — 
Wherefore was this poor thrall, whose chains 
Hung heaviest, within whose veins 
The oldest blood of freedom streamed, 

Still unredeemed? 
* * * * 

Emma Lazarus. 



Lines on Carmen Sylva 

•yREMBLING old men are stamm'ring 
"*" Scarce can their anguish tell — 
Whisp'ring the ancient Hebrew, 
The "Hear, O Israel!" 
Some little Jew is falling. 

Clubbed in his narrow pale — 
The Queen is singing sweetly 
Songs of the Nightingale. 

684 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Watchmen are growing fretful, 

Why should they longer wait? 
Hurry the homeless wanderers 

Through the next dark suffering-gate. 
What though anchors are lifted, 

What though poor exiles flee — 
Carmen Sylva is warbling 

An Ode to Humanity. 

Emma Lazarus. 

The Russian Jewish Rabbi 

I 

/^LD and gray, his shoulders bent, 
^^^ Tall and meagre like a cane, 
To my door came up a man. 

When the day began to wane. 
In one hand he held a staff, 

While the other wiped a tear, 
Like the leaves on swinging boughs 

He had shrunk from cold and fear. 
"Peace to you," he quietly said, 

And a tear had filled his eye; 
On his face I noticed grief, 

From his heart I heard a sigh. 
"Can you take me 'neath your roof? 

I am tired, and weak and old; 
Just like death, severe and sharp, 

Crude and merciless the cold, 
I am hungry, bare and poor. 
Orphan-like I am on soil 
For I cannot tug for life 

By my hands, or mental toil. 
I had been a teacher once 

And our children I had taught; 
God's my witness, — I had e'er 

Perfectly my duties wrought. 
Now my children have grown up, 

685 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Like grand flowers they still grow, 
And I drink the bitter cup, 

Suffering in tears and woe." 
Silent then became the man. 

And the tears have rolled and rolled. 
On his sad and wrinkled face 

A reproach I could behold, 
This was meant for him, whose heart 

In the careless body sleeps. 
Who is merciless, unmoved. 

When a struggler sighs and weeps. 

II 

When in slumber earth was hushed, 

My fatigued and suff'ring guest 
Finally in pleasant sleep 

Found forgetfulness and rest. 
The night's queen, the wingy dream, 

Looked at him and sweetly smiled. 
Carried him at once away, 

Where he lived while yet a child. 
Here's his father's little house. 

Where he passed his childhood days. 
Where his heart had freely breathed 

'Mong his friends, and mates at plays. 
Here's the temple, where he oft 

With his father ran to pray, 
''Tell me, dearest, w^hy we haste," 

To his 'pa, he used to say. 
"Child, the Sabbath-hour is near, 

And the temple's open wide, — 
There our souls w^ill find repose. 

Far from care's and struggling's tide." 
In the dismal synagog 

Darkness, gloom reigns over all. 
Down the rigid sexton goes 

To the corner . . . By the wall 
Stands a candle on a shelf ; 

Fast to it he makes his way, 

686 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Then, by turn, he lights each lamp, 

And, when done, he walks away. 
Thus the gloomy synagog 

Soon assumed an aspect bright; 
And the boy with eager eyes 

Follows ev'ry trembling light. 
"Where's the candle and the shaft, 

That, like in a fairy land. 
Instantly created light? 
Told in darkness, *Be there light?' 

By the customary hand. 
By the hand that used the light 
It was slip-shod cast aside!" 

Ill 

Jew^ish, tired and suff'ring Rabbi, 

Such, poor teacher, is your fate! 
Keeper of the Lord's commandments, 

Was your toil not holy, great? 
Have you not with holy blazes 

Lit our children's heart and soul ? 
Have you not, inspired like prophets, 

Taught them life's true end and goal? 
Rabbi, did you not instruct them 

To believe, to love and wait, 
To be honest, true and faithful, 

"With a heart for any fate?" 
Well, and now? . . . With mute affliction 

You are wandering alone, 
O'er your head a fearful darkness, 

In your heart a deathly moan. 

Translated by Herman Bernstein. 



687 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

''Mai-Ko-Mashma-Lon' 

Cui Bono? 

(Monologue of a Talmudlcal student.) 

\Y7 hat's the meaning of the rainstorm? 
^ What's the story that it tells me? 
On the window panes the rain-drops 
Roll, a turbid stream of tears. 
And the boots are worn and tearing, 
And without 'tis muddy, stormy; 
Winter, too, will soon be coming 
And I have no wrap to warm me. 

What's the meaning of the taper? 

What's the story that it tells me? 

The tallow downward drips and trickles, 

Faintly flaring, dying slowly. 

Like a taper weak and weary, 

'Lone within this hut I wither, 

Till some day in sullen quiet, 

Dying they will bear me thither. 

What's the meaning of the old clock? 
What's the story that it tells me? 
Its dial quaint and faded yellow. 
Each weird stroke resounding heavy. 
'Tis a lifeless, soulless object. 
Merely striking at each hour. 
Lacking spirit, lacking feeling. 
Slave to another's will and power. 

What's the meaning of my being? 
What's the story that it tells me? 
Days of youth are vegetating 
Waxing old so prematurely. 
Days of fast and tears a'plenty. 
Bony knuckles for a pillow, 
Sacrificing all life's pleasures 
For a life that is to follow. 

Abraham Raisin. 
(Translated by Henry Greenfield.) 

688 



I 



{ 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



The Jewish Soldier 

LJARD by the walls of Plevna, not fifty yards away, 
* ■■' There lies a grave forsaken, scarcfe visible to-day; 
Forsaken and neglected, uncared for and unknown, 
No wreath is there to mark it, no monument of stone. 
No grass, no flowers, grow there beneath those sullen 

skies ; 
'Tis there a sleeping hero, a Jewish soldier lies — 
A Jewish soldier fallen in Plevna's bloody fight, 
When Russia, all victorious, put forth her conquering 

might. 

The world is hushed to slumber and silence reigns 

around, 
A silence all unbroken, no voice, no breath, no sound ; 
But when the chimes of midnight ring from the ancient 

tower. 
Out of the east awakens a storm wind, strong in power. 
Across the land it rushes, and, stronger and more 

strong, 
It roars and howls and thunders in tumult wild and 

long. 
Until the earth it cleaveth as with the trump of doom. 
And, sword in hand, the soldier arises from his tomb. 

Upon the wall he standeth, as in the dauntless past. 
And from his heart sore-wounded, the blood flows free 

and fast. 
His soldier's blood flows freely, his heart is wounded 

deep, 
And in a voice of thunder he calls the dead from sleep. 
"Awake my warrior comrades, awake and judge aright; 
Say, did I not stand bravely beside you in the fight? 
Like you, did I not perish on Plevna's battle plain 
For Russia's greater glory, for Russia's greater gain?" 

689 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And as his words fall silent, there wakes to life once 
more 

A mighty host, unnumbered as sand upon the shore; 

A mighty armed multitude arises at his hest. 

From far and near they gather, they come from east 
and west; ^ 

With marching and with clanging, with heavy, echo- 
ing tread. 

Until they stand before him, an army of the dead ; 

And ev'ry soldier answers, with high uplifted hand, 

And swears: "Yea, thou hast fallen for Czar and fa- 
therland." 

And all again is silent, no voice, no breath, no sound, 
The mighty host has vanished and stillness reigns 

around ; 
But still the Jewish soldier stands on the fortress wall. 
And soon his words, resounding, like fiery missiles fall, 
''O! Russia, for thy honor did I lay down my life! 
O ! Russia thou hast torn me from children and from 

wife ! 
Why dost thou now condemn them to exile and de- 
spair ? 
My curse, my heavy curses, to thee the winds shall 
hear." 

And scarcely has he uttered these curses, fraught wit-h 

pain, 
When swift the storm-wind carries him to his grave 

again. 
And at the self-same hour, and at the self-same place, 
The self-same actors nightly that gloomy scene retrace. 
The soldier's bitter curses grow deeper night by night. 
They deepen and they gather until they rise in might, 
Borne on the tempest's pinions, far o'er the land they 

fly, 

And on Gatschina's palace forevermore they lie. 

Alice Lucas. 



690 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



B^nai B'rith 

A DOWN the vista of the long ago, 
** Like crimson flowers anod on slender stems, 

Or like the gleam of iridescent gems 
That half-concealed along the wayside glow, 
Good deeds and great, and Impulses divine 
Mark man's endeavor on the paths of time. 

Whene'er a noble deed is sung by Fame, 
A flush of joy enkindles east and west ; 
Yea, half-unconsciously, all earth is blessed, 

Since each life hath on every heart a claim. 
Doth not the rose await the butterfly, 
The brook assume the blue of summer sky? 

Thus on the path of time a glowing light. 
That gave its aid to weary, struggling men, 
Reflected was again and yet again. 

E'en a lamp between two mirrors bright; 

And clearly burned that beacon-light wherewith 
Men learned thy life, thy love, B'nal B'rith. 

For to the lonely widow's bare abode 

Thou bringest comfort, thou the tear dost dry 
On pallid orphan cheek ; the sufferer's cry 

Has touched thy tender heart as with a goad ; 
The darkened chamber where the sick repose, 
Thy helpful hand, thy cheering presence, knows. 

And e'en to realms far, far across the seas. 
Where Hunger toils, yet cannot ease its want, 
Where chatt'ring Cold is clad in garments scant, 

And dark Oppression reigns, — for even these 

Thy strong right hand has snapped the iron rod, 
And 'mid fierce conflict claimed a truce of God. 

691 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Here did thy foot, on Freedom's daisied turf, 
For far Roumania's child a refuge seek 
From fire, from sword, from crimes we dare not 
speak ; 

Here manhood crowned the erstwhile cowering serf. 
And thou didst teach him glorious liberty: 
Hark! the refrain, "My country, 'tis of thee!" 

Ne'er has that country summoned thee in vain; 
Thy soul rose ever, ready at her call, 
Poor wind-swept Galveston, 'neath ruined wall, 

Found swift relief from hunger, want and pain. 
No tardy charity thy offering mars — 
Brothers are all beneath the Stripes and Stars. 

And now the pearl of fifty-seven years 

Glides on the slender golden thread of time; 
The while lost voices through our converse chime, 

We see loved faces through a mist of tears — 
The friends w^ho worked beside us long ago. 
Who slumber where the waning grasses grow. 

Their hearts conceived a glorious brotherhood 
Of friendship and of love — a power that glides 
From man to man, and yet fore'er abides. 

The pioneers of progress they, who stood 
Upon the starry mountain peaks of time. 
And saw the future In a light sublime. 

Their task Is done; they gave our outstretched hands 
The silken banner and the silvery horn, 
On ! upward, then ! A golden age is born ! 

A century its magic flower expands! 

On life's great summits seek ye out Its birth, 
And with its bloom and fragrance fill the earth. 

Miriam del Banco. 



692 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



B^nai Brith 

DAUSE, O ye winds of Heaven, pause in your 

**" winged flight 

To catch on your spreading bosom, on your circling 

pinions bright, 
The voices of Heavenly joyance, the paeans of gladsome 

praise 
That float from yon mansion of splendor, lit by eternal 

rays. 

That float yon palace of beauty, that rears to a tower- 
ing height 

In proud built, massive grandeur, its gleaming walls 
of light. 

Yea, count ye, the many stories, and mark ye the noble 
air 

'Tis the Order B'nai B'rith — a castle wondrous fair! 

Then pause, O ye fleeting winds, and hark to the puis-* 

ing swells. 
The anthems of glorious hope, the peal of the Jubilee 

bells! 
As they mount to the crystal skies, and gladden the 

welkin above 
With their silvery voices of love, born of a golden love. 

A myriad host of voices, that flood the night with glee 
And grow from a muffled murmur to an outcry wild 

and free 
As we climb from the level upward, in the wondrous 

palace of light. 
And the bells increase in beauty, and the walls increase 

in might. 

The sun-kissed heights at last ; in pride subdued we turn 
To cast a backward glance, and our souls within us 
burn, 

693 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Yea friends, a noble structure, framed from our hearts' 

best love 
With willing hands well-wrought, and blessed by 

Heaven above. 

See from the thousand windows, the streaming rays of 
light 

Dispelling with warmth and splendor the darkness of 
the night, 

And guiding the weary ones, lost in the blackness with- 
out. 

Straight to the Beacon of hope, away from the laby- 
rinth of doubt. 

The twilight of ignorance changing to the glorious 

noonday bright, 
A lamp of life to the struggling, a torch to the blinded 

^ sight, 
Enlightenment, fair motto engraved on our walls and 

souls ; 
Light! Light! for the night-wrapt world — yea, spread 

it to the poles. Rqs^ Strauss. 



On Attempting to Convert the Jews to 
Christianity 

"Vy/HEN thou canst wash the Ethiopian white, 

Govern the winds or give the sun more light. 
Cause by thy words the mountain to remove, 
Control the seas or hurl the bolt of Jove, 
Then hope — but not till then — to turn the Jews, 
To Christian doctrines, and to Christian views; 
For Christian faith, say conscience, is thy guide, 
The Jews, for conscience sake 'gainst it decide. 
One God thou callest three, and three but one. 
The Jews acknowledge God as one alone. 
To whom all honour, praise, and glory due, 
From Christian, Pagan, Mussulman and Jew. 

694 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Were not the Jews from Abraham decreed 
To be the holy and the chosen seed, 
Appointed to receive and to record 
The sacred scriptures of the Almighty's word, 
While every prophet's tongue, and angels' voice 
Proclaimed that people God's peculiar choice? 
Then why should humanity presume 
To question God's decree and assume 
Wisdom, be3^ond the reach of mortal ken, 
Unknown to angels, unconceived by men? 

To Abraham, Isaac, and to Jacob too 
God did sacred promises renew ; 
Told them, their seed, conducted by his hand 
Should surely see and gain the promised land. 
What though proud Pharaoh long in bondage kept 
The sons of Jacob, while they mourned and wept ? 
Yet, in due time, the promises prevailed, 
And God's beloved their great deliverer hailed. 

Moses the holy prophet of the Lord, 
With inspiration blessed, proclaimed the word ; 
Gave comfort when his brethren most despaired, 
And all the mercies of their God declared ; 
By miracles and wonders set them free 
From Pharaoh's proud and ruthless tyranny. 
Led them triumphant from the fatal shore, 
From which their enemies returned no more; 
Who madly rash, and impiously brave, 
All found in Israel's path a watery grave. 
Thus Pharaoh and the host of Egypt failed — 
Israel was saved — the Lord of Hosts prevailed. 

Did not such wonders and such judgments prove 
The Jews to be the object of God's love? 
Then what art thou who darest dispute their claim 
To blessings promised in the Eternal name? 
Oppressed, distressed, and wandering o'er the world, 
The ensign of their glory still unfurled? 

695 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

What now supports them? What does joy afford? 
Hope in the promises — faith in God the Lord. 

Canst thou from hope and faith their tribes seduce 
By specious arguments, howe'er profuse? 
No, conversion must from conviction flow — 
The mind to mere assertions cannot bow ; 
Man must believe what nature's reasons cite, 
Until illumed by some superior light, 
Canst thou communicate those rays divine? 
Presumptuous man! let humbler thoughts be thine. 

Serve thou thy God with all thy heart and soul. 

Seek not thy neighbour's conscience to control ; 

But humbly hope that all who are sincere 

In goodness, will eternal mercy share; 

That every honest charitable heart 

Will of celestial bliss enjoy its part ; 

When God shall summon all before his throne 

Each one to answer for himself alone. 

Anonymous. 



Autumn Songs 

'T'HE Jews, my brothers, will they understand me? 
'*' And all that stirs within a poet's heart? 
Will they believe how deep can be his sadness. 
How burning and incurable the smart? 

A Jew has learned to think of other matters 
Since first from out the mud he raised 

And stood upon his feet, and managed shortly 
To look like other people, God be praised ! 

For all eternity he had a teacher, 

On Sabbath days the Scripture to explain 

And as he listened, full of deep contrition 

He sighed and sobbed ; his tears fell down like rain. 

696 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

And then he had a crazy thing, a jester 

A man of brains, a youth sharp-witted, quick, 

And in his verse he would find refreshment, 
And with his tongue would click. 

And then sometimes, he brought him of a pedlar 
Or else at fairs, a tale, — upon my word. 

It is the very drollest thing that ever 
Was seen or heard. 

One reads and laughs and then a little farther 
One reads and laughs till one is like to split. 

One laughs, because to that intent and purpose 
The thing was writ. \ 

What then ? Is Jewish life so cheerful ? 

Contains it then so much at which to smile? 
Are there so many things away from sadness 

The stricken heart one moment to beguile? 

And do we then lament so very seldom? 

Let's reckon now and see if we can tell : 
We weep throughout the fast-day of Atonement, 

The rich and poor, the young and old as well. 

We weep o'er Lamentations and Confession, 

We weep the daylight and the darkness through, 

And are we not to laugh a little ever? 

Go, let us be! why that would never do! 

They've laughed in years gone by, and in the future 
To laugh they will continue, just so long 

As there shall live a Jew — then hush, be silent 
My song, my melancholy song. 

S. Frug. 

(Translated by Alice Stone Blackwell.) 



697 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Feldmesten or Measuring the Graves 

C\^ hill and glade, the flowers fade, 
^^ The bleaching grass is all a-cold ; 
The leaves all frayed, in dust are laid, 
The shrewd and churlish winds grow bold. 

Like jealous thieves, they tear the leaves 

That shiver, clinging to the tree, 
The Eden leaves — the heart, it grieves, 

The chilly air's a prophecy. 

The signs of loss and wreckage float; 

A tear is trembling in the sky; 
The bird, a lump is in her throat. 

For song and summer that must die. 

Granny, these Ellul penance days. 

Days, purgatorial, sad and sere. 
Like pilgrim plods her dolorous ways 

To burial grounds to drop her tear. 

With prophesying heart and look. 

The yarn in use for shrouds she buys, 

And lays it in her prayer-book. 

And wipes, and wipes again her eyes. 

And hobbling hies her to the graves ; 

Her heart, a nest of gnaw'ing fears; 
And there unwinds, unwinds and laves 

The thread with tears — they weep, her years. 

She sobs and sighs some sacred word. 
With pain as if the grave did yawn 

Within her heart; as if she heard 

The whirr of worms in coffins spawn. 

She bows her head, and lays the thread, 
And metes and measures every mound ; 

Each peaceful dwelling of the dead. 
Each holy home in silence bound. 

698 • 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Her tears, they well, her tears, they roll, 

As on the grave she lays the line; 
And something sobs within her soul, 

"You, too, one day will have this shrine. 

"Your sacred mound, some hands will mete; 

Who knows if not your fingers now 
Have measured here your life's retreat. 

The grave which time for you will plow?" 

She wipes a tear, winds up again 

The hallowed, dusty tear-touched thread, 

She takes it home, and weaves amain 
A wick by which the Torah's read. 

A wick, a lamp for Judah's camp. 

That keeps the Torah's law of life — 

And then she sighs — '*No more they tramp 
The dead, the dead are free from strife. 

*'0 Lord, of love and living years. 

We lit Thy Torah's lamp so long, 
With threads of graves, with threads of tears. 

When will we weave It threads of song?" 

Alter Abelson. 



Nature and the Poet 

IV/F Y Rabbi w^as Nature — she set me to learn, 
"•*" She taught me to sing and she taught me to play, 
She taught me to think and to feel, day by day, 
And all that is beautiful, swift to discern. 
The heart must be fresh, and the brain clear and steady, 
-The scales and the measure be waiting and ready, 
And I, after all, have become — why you know It; 
A poet, my brothers, a poor Jewish poet. 

S. Frug. 



699 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

On the Grave of Michael Gordon 

/^NE more gravestone — one more heart 
^^ Cold and still has found relief, 
From the joy and bitter smart, 
From the wrath of other's grief. 

Where the ash is strewn about 
Lies the dear old fiddle lone 

And the crazy song rang out 
With a sudden sound of moan. 

Strong and earnest, unafraid 
Rose the song clear and high. 

Ring the bell — the piece is played! 
Hushed the laughter, hushed the cry. 

In the land where, free from pain. 
Thou, dear soul, art gone to live. 

One assurance still retain 

All the comfort we can give. 

This, while yet there lives a Jew, 
Through the many coming years 

Shall thy songs be sung anew 

Some with laughter, some with tears. 

Sleep thou spirit sweet and rare, 
Where the leaves of life are shed ! 

Thine own songs shall be the Pray'r 
Spoke in blessing o'er the dead. 

S. Frug. 



Sand and Stars 

CHINES the moon, the stars are glowing, 
^ The night sweeps on o'er hill and plain ; 
In the tattered book before me 
I read, and read them once again. 

700 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Ancient words of promise holy, 

And loud at last they speak to me 

"As the stars of heaven — my people 
And as the sand beside the sea." 

Lord Almighty Thou hast spoken, 

Unchanging is Thy holy will, 
Ev'rything at Thy commandment 

His own appointed place shall fill. 

Yes, dear Lord, we're sand and pebbles, 
We're scattered, underfoot and trod. 

But the stars, the bright and sparkling. 

The stars, the stars, — where are they, God? 

S. Frug. 



The False Hope 
"Zionism's only Hope is in the Jews of America." — 

NORDAU. 

ly/fETHOUGHT I saw the heavy eyelids rise, 
^^^ The Midased face shine clear of its gilt dream 

The lightning gaze that should beseem 
The answerer; the flash shall fire the skies 
With beauty of a mighty heart that flies 

Strong with its hope and in its strength supreme 
With its own life a people's life redeem. 
Ordained and sealed unto this enterprise. 

This great thing was: dear God! what doth enhance 
The swinish sleep, the dream, the easihead ! 

What turns him from the master — Circumstance 
To slumber and a trough of unearned bread ! 

O sluggard, spendthrift of the fateful Chance! 
O shameless shame of our heroic dead. 

Horace M. Kallen. 
701 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



O 



Out of the Depths 

UT of the depths of despair 

There cometh a plaint and a prayer; 
Give ear to this cry, O my brothers, 
From lips that have pleaded for others! 

"Must I die in the land of the living 

A terrible two-fold death, 
Or come ye with mercy, life-giving. 

Ere the angel shall stifle my breath? 

"I found a world of oppression, 
Of merciless hatred and greed ; 

God's wrath — I gave it expression. 
And the world it could not but heed. 

"I heard how my people were groaning 

'Neath tyranny's pitiless yoke. 
And I uttered their muffled moaning 

Till men turned pale as I spoke. 

"And all the rew'ard that I sought for 
Was to share in the ending of wrong; 

But I fell in the cause that I fought for. 
Too weak for even a song. 

"I am still in the land of the living 
Where greed and oppression abound ; 

Yet spite of my saddest misgiving, 
My voice can not utter a sound. 

"Will you praise me and call me a prophet 
When my bones lie under the sod? — 

If I heed it at all, I shall scoff it 
And call you to 'count before God. 

"A crust of bread for each flower 
You are saving to lay on my tomb. 

Mayhap would yield me the power 
The song of my youth to resume. 

702 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

" 'Tis no marble pillar I task for 

But for Truth and Right alone; 
Then stint not the pity I ask for, 

To pay me for bread, with a stone." 

Out of the depths of despair 
O hearken a plaint and a prayer! 
O brothers, make haste to attend it 
Ere comes the grim Reaper to end it. 

That ancient and often-told story 
Of a prophet despoiled of his glory, 
Till, deaf to the praise of vain mortals. 
He enters eternity's portals. 

Joseph Jasin. 



As the Stars and the Sands 

'T'HE hills and the valleys are flooded vi^ith moonlight, 
The radiant stars, how resplendent they gleam! 
Before me lies open the dear, olden volume, 
On whose pages I ponder and dream. 

I pore o'er its pages so precious and sacred. 

When sudden there whispers a voice unto me: 

"I have promised, O Israel, I have sworn to make you 
Like the stars of the heavens, the sands of the sea!" 

O Lord of Creation ! what mortal dare question 
A single word of Thy Promise of grace? 

Every deed Thou hast pledged Thou art mighty to do 
it — 
Each thing in its time, each part in its place. 

And one thing e'en now Thou hast surely fulfilled it, 
Mine own eyes behold it, forbidding all doubt; 

We have become like the sand that is worthless, 
Trodden and trampled and blown about. 

703 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Yes, dear Lord, as the sand the pebbles 

Are we scattered and strewn 'neath contemptuous 
feet; 

But the stars — how long, O Lord, ere the stars 
The yearning eyes with their glory shall greet? 

S. Frug. 
(Translated by Joseph Jasin.) 

I 

^^ , . . Whom You Are to Blame'^ 
(Dedicated to "Mentor.") 

/^NCE in my secluded chamber 
^^ Late at night I read 
Israel's ancient wondrous story; 
How he shone and shed 

Light around him, in his homeland 

Thriving free and great . . . 
Then my thoughts passed to his later 

Treacherous, cruel fate: 

Israel homeless, footsore, captive 

Into exile goes. 
And the world has long forgotten 

What to him it owes. 

"Gentile world! You have polluted 

Springs from which you drank!" 
And in bitter, sad reflections, 

Tired and weak I sank. . . . 



Stealthily an old man entered 

My secluded room; 
On his breast a cross suspended, 

In his eyes — deep gloom. 

704 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

"Fear not," said he, "vain Intruder 

I am not, you'll find ; 
You accused me, and I came here, 

Came to speak my mind. 

"Not defend myself, but tell you 

Whom you are to blame 
For your homelessness, your downfall, 

For your grief and shame. 

"No, not I, but you polluted 

Your eternal spring; 
Home and faith and pride abandoned, 

And to exile cling. 

"Kneel and pray to alien altars. 

Worship alien gods, 
Even like in cast-off garments 

Deal In cast-off thoughts. 

"Gather crumbs at strangers' tables . . . 

No, your pride Is gone! 
For you glory that you have no 

Table of your own. . . . 

"Faith, and truth, and pride — all treasures 

You have prized of old ; 
For a lentil-pottage long since 

You your birthright sold. 

"You no longer feel the horror 

Of a slave's disgrace. 
Do you want me to respect you, 

Honour such a race? 

"Once you heroes had and prophets 

Noble, great and true ; 
How much of their daring spirit 

Now is left in you? 

705 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

"Grandsons of the Maccabeans! 

If those heroes came 
Saw their servile offsprings— they would 

Die again — of shame! 

''Dead is all your pride and valour, 

Silent is your tongue, 
Tongue of bards, and kings and prophets — 

You forsook it long. 

"And your home that waits deserted 

Do you e'er recall? 
Where are all your rich and mighty — 

Mammon's High Priests all? 

"Like deserters they are sailing 

Under foreign flags, 
Lackej^s that their masters' mantles 

Wear — to hide their rags. 

"Crumbs of bread, and night of lodging — 

Dare no more expect! 
No, a race that lost its self-pride 

No one can respect. 

"This is all I came to tell you! 
Now, good-bye ... I spoke. . . ." 

"Stay!" I shrieked, "I must reply you, 
Stay" — and I awoke. . . . 

P. M. Raskin. 

Side by Side 

JEW and Christian, side by side. 
They rest in the cool earth's bosom wide — 
Or lying deep where the billows sweep. 
In the heart of the great green sea they sleep! 
Over them flutters the banner fair. 
While a sadness thrills in the Springtide air. 

706 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Jew and Christian, side by side, 
As men they fought, and as men they died ! 
Like brothers stood fast at the bugle blast. 
Until like brothers they sleep at last. 
While over them flutters the banner fair, 
And a sadness thrills in the Springtide air. 

Jew and Christian, side by side, 
For their common country they lived and died, 
And they vigil keep, in their dreamless sleep, 
O'er the brotherhood that is ours to keep. 
While over ul flutters the banner fair, 
Though a sadness thrills in the Springtide air. 

Isabella R. Hess. 



The Young Rabbi 

""THOU lookest backward reverently. 'Tis well! 
The springs of life and faith are still our shrines, 
And, standing strong in living deed, the spell 
Of this day's call thy listening heart divines. 

The to-morrow's light is on thy brow, thy step 

Leans forward where the quickening Word abides; 

Thy past a pledge that yet that Mj^stic Roll 
A fuller, holier revelation hides. 

Young heritor of ancient faith, thou guide 
Of present need, and seer of faith to be! 

The august centuries converge on thee — 
One living God behind, before, beside. 

The same Eternal keeps the open door; 

Stand forth with Him and sing to-day's Mismor! 

E. C. L. Browne. 



707 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



"... and Give Thee Peace** 

'T'HE Summer glories fade in autumn mists, 

The sombre earth is wrapped in clouds of gloom ; 
Faint through the storm-filled air a sound is borne, 
A sound of dread — a sound of awful doom. 

It is the tread of armed marching hosts, 
The muffled roar of death-dispensing fire, 

The cry of anguish, and the piteous groan 
Of brave men dying in the battle mire. 

O God ! that creatures fashioned in Thy shape 
Should in Thy sight, their brother-creatures slay! 

Oh, riddle dire! whose answer we must wait 
Beyond the narrow limit of the day! 

Let forth the snow-plumed bird! Speed Thou her 
' flight 

Across this world of storm, and stress, and strife, 
That where she spreads her magic pinions' shade, 

Joy may awake to sweet and happy life! 

Florence Weisberg. 



Twenty-one Years of Rescue Work 

OHAMED and degraded you call them — they! 
^ Flung In the nameless abysses, whose anguish de- 
files. 
Where grief is forbidden to weep, and agony forced 
Into smiles. 
Shamed and degraded, you say! 

O for a tongue of fire, for words like to scourging 

flame, 
Telllne that theirs Is the anguish, and ours, ours 
only, the shame. 

708 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Ours, or we shudder and turn aside, 

Holding our whiteness aloof from the stench and the 

stain. 
While t'wards those pestilent depths there passes a 

pitiful train. 
Hunger and evil their guide, 

Innocent, ignorant, starving, thrust forth on the 

fatal track — 
Ours is the shame, for they perish, and we could 

have held them back! 

Could — nay, we can, for behold the throng. 

Sad souls ready to perish, still passing the self-same 

way, 
Men and women of Israel, come to their aid this day. 
Rise, let your hands be made strong! 

Souls, in God's image created, maimed, prisoned and 

tortured see. 
God do so to us and more also, if we do not set 
them free! 

Alice Lucas. 



A Call to Israel 

Vy/HERE is the modern Judah Maccabee? 
^^ He of the dauntless soul in warrior guise. 
To lead anew the world's hope of the free, 

While silent nations Israel's claim denies; 
Shall tortured hearts by hands tyrannic slain. 
Throughout long years bear martyrdom in vain? 

Where dwells that silent, kingly soul unknown? 

Predestined champion of illustrious race, — 
His portion more than splendors of a throne; 

To bear aloft the Lion standard's grace; 
With human voice of God's authority, 
To summon all the hosts of Liberty! 

709 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

It may be 'neath compulsion's daily toil, 

Eating the bitter crusts of poverty; 
A trembling exile, on a foreign soil, 

Our New Deliverer finds that destiny 
Has wrought misfortune for Life's higher aim, 
And the world's freedom in God's holy name: 

It may be, that by song and music lulled 

Into the selfish life's forgetfulness, 
The heart thornless flowers of beauty culled, 

Feels the quick throb of pitying helpfulness; 
The wakened conscience, for the needs of Time, 
Fashions the hero unto acts sublime. 

In Israel's glorious past transcendent shone 
The reverent daring of the Woman-soul ; 

Fair Esther proved her birthright to a throne; 
Great names adorn eventful centuries' roll. 

With trumpet-blast of battle; — silent deed. 

Of noblest service to a world in need. 

May not the wise, omnipotent decree 

Of the All-Merciful, Eternal One, 
Find 'mid the multitude of brave and free. 

Some modern Judith ? in ascendance won 
For Freedom's holiest cause; to light the way 
Unto the Tyrants' overthrow, To-day! 

How sweet the peace of blest security! 

As 'gainst all warfare hearts humane declaim ; 
That is no righteous use of liberty. 

That blends with Freedom's breath a despot's name. 
By force and fraud, and cruel wrong assailed. 
With sheathed sword, Justice keeps her pure eyes veiled ! 
And Force and Fraud, hand linked with Bigotry, 
Form the Chief Guards of Russia's sovereignty. 

Where is the modern Judah Maccabee? 

Welcome the Conqueror in whatever guise! 
Life is but living death when liberty 

Beneath Oppression's stifling process dies. 

710 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Rise valiant daughters of the prophet line. 
Rise, Jewish warriors with the rage divine, 
That scorns subjections! better honored graves. 
Than longer be the blood-stained Tyrant's slaves. 
The world that should espouse your cause is still — 
Arise! Arm! Strike! do Freedom's holy will! 

Cora Wilburn. 



Meditations at Twilight 

A H, more and more at evening, 
'**■ When twilight edges to its end, 
And darkness, eastern caverns leaving. 

Her shadow o'er creation bend ; 
The lowing moments foster meaning 

Upon the pageant of decay, 
As glory into night diffusing 

Brings untoward sadness in her way. 

Within that evening calm there comes 

A recollection faint and dim 
Of boyhood, of Sabbath hour and homes, 

Of synagogue and temple hymn. 
When in abated breath we heard 

The echoes of our spirit-fathers, 
In praise and reverential word 

Of prayer. This spirit hovers. 

Their hymns re-echo in my dreams. 

They too felt doubt, despondency; 
And saw our mistrusts also beam 

In thought. The poet and sages fancy 
Gave them hope beyond our mind, 

More truthful to the thought of God, 
To attributes that firmly bind 

A God above — yet man to sod. 

7n 



j 



STANDARD BOOK: OF JEWISH VERSE 

For ages have Thy children sought 

And find Thy mercy hath no end, 
Greater thought and deeds are wrought 

On earth to-day, than in the trend 
Of generations turned to dust; 

Still must with love our bosom heave, 
With hope and common manful trust, 

The rest — to God we meekly leave. 

And lo! upon yon lum'nous ascent, 

There glitters joyously the star 
Proclaiming night. Ah, day hath sent 

Her messengers of light afar, 
Come spirit of the evening, dwell 

With us, and in our life's increase 
Of doubt and the annoying spell. 

Of discontent — to us — bring peace. 

Joseph Leiser. 



The New Jewish Hospital at Hamburg 

A HOSPITAL for the poor and weary Jew, 
'**' For sons of man that suffer three-fold ills; 
Burdened and baned with three infirmities; 
With poverty, disease, and Judaism! 

The worst of all has ever been the last, 

The Jewish sickness of the centuries, 

The plague caught in the Nile stream's slimy vale, 

The old unwholesome faith that Egypt knew. 

No healing for this sickness! All In vain 
The vapor-bath and douch, vain all the tricks 
Of surgery, vain all this house may bring 
Of simples to its fever-tossing guests. 

Will Time perchance, the eternal goddess, blot 
This gloomy sorrow that handed down 
From sire to son — vvill some far children know 
The perfect happiness of cloudless health? 

712 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

None can foretell! Yet meantime let us praise 
The heart that full of love and wisdom sought 
To trickle balm upon the rankling wound, 
To give what comfort still is possible. 

This loving man has built a shelter here 

For suffering that a skillful hand may soothe 

Or cure, or haply Death's if others fail. 

Beds sets he here and cooling drinks and care. 

A man of deeds, he did what one might do 
And In the evening of his days he paid 
Unto good works the needful due, and dreamed 
To rest from labor In kind charity. 

Unstinted was his hand — yet richer gifts 
Rolled down his cheeks so many a time — the tears, 
The precious, generous tears that oft he wept 
For his poor brethren's Immedicable III. 

Heinrich Heine. 



The Rose of Sharon 

/^H ! I love to roam In fancy o'er the hills where 

^^ ZIon stood, 

There to watch the daughter ZIon weeping o'er her 

widowhood ; 
She was like the bride of beauty storied In the Song 

of Songs, 
Who was queen of all the maidens, peer among the 

lily throngs. 

Sharon's lily, bride of beauty how I love to think of 

thee. 
For thy lips were threads of crimson and thy neck 

of Ivory, 
For thine eyes seemed pools of water, clear as Hesh- 

bon's melted dew, 
And thy lips were dripping honey, so I love to think 

of you. 

713 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Oh! for all the wise king's glory who was Israel's 

paragon, 
He was like a stately cedar, cedar of the Lebanon: 
I can see his litter lifted by his expert men of war, 
As it passed sweet odor drifted, myrrh and spikenard 

through its door. 

Israel wedded to its glory, like a garden to its flowers, 
When the north wind blew upon it, it was sweet with 

scented showers; 
For the bride, the Rose of Sharon, was the land of 

Palestine, 
There the fig tree grew and ripened, there the apple 

and the vine. 

There sweet cinnamon and saffron and the incense 

bearing trees, 
There the calamus and spices perfumed each passing 

breeze ; 
There grew myrrh and there the aloe, there the nard 

and henna bloom. 
There to die on Zion's bosom made of death the 

sweetest doom. 
Oh ! how I would love to see thee as thou wast when 

in thy prime, 
When thy marble pavements echoed with the sandals 

keeping time 
To the chorus of the Levites as they climbed the temple 

steep, 
Singing psalms and hallelujahs, with their ranks a 

thousand deep. 

Yet I would not weep, O daughter, for a better day 
must near. 

And I would not back to Zion, for the prophets made 
this clear, 

That the world shall be our garden where shall blos- 
som Zion's tree, 

This, the "tree of life," the Torah, which shall bloom 
eternally. 

714 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Then, away with clouds of ashes and the weeds of 

w^idowhood, 
For the world's a greater temple than the shrine where 

Zion stood ; 
And I would not back to Zion and I would not back 

again, 
For our God has made our mission not for us but for 

all men. Harry Weiss. 



<{ 



The Age of Toleration^ 



IVTHAT this ''the age of toleration "—Yet ^ 
^ 'Tis well so named for you that wield Earth's state : 

Tis a vast, bloody show ye tolerate, 
Mute mouths, glazed eyes, round Hate's arena set! 
Behold your "Christian" robes all dabbled wet. 

With human crimson, stains which to abate 

No throat thrills out — (though soft ye come, too late 
With bootless gold and maudlin, vain regret!) 
Comes this of Fear, great Nations? Can it be 

None dares the dripping monster's bloodshot eye? 

Not pious Germany, not ransomed Gaul, 
Proud IBritain, nor — Oh, shame, thy form to see 

With theirs, my country! leaning from thy stall, 

Pale but still mute, while Hell goes glittering by ! 

Arthur Upton. 



Intolerance 

HTHOU canst have no other God but mine; 
**■ Of what avail is holy script? 
Who is this God thou call'st thine; 

He utters not from heart, but — lip; 
Go — get thee hence before ye rue; 

My God, my creed's alone sublime, 
Thy creeds, thy laws are all untrue, 

My God, and mine's alone divine. 

Ray Trum Nathan. 
715 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



They Tell Me 

THEY tell me, "Give thy nation up; 

The ancient graves resign ! 
Give us thy soul — then plenty, wealth, 
And greatness shall be thine." 

They tell me: ''Think not to rebuild 

The City, proud and tall, 
Of whose old splendor there is left 

Only a crumbling wall. 

"Dream not thy nation to arouse 

Out of its slumber deep ; 
Behold, it has so many years 

Lain in a marmot's sleep!" 

False prophets, hush! Fie, charlatans! 

I swerve not from the goal. 
I will not give my honor up, — 

I will not sell my soul. 

The path my fathers trod through life 

I follow straight and clear; 
Should Death demand me, I will mount 

The scaffold without fear. 

My God, my race, I will not change 

For gold or jewels' fires. 
More than a stranger's treasure-house 

A grave among my sires. 

EZEKIEL LeAVITT. 

(Translation from the Hebrew by Alice Stone 
Blackwell.) 



716 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



Gifts 

/^H, World-God, give me Wealth!" the Egyptian 
^^ cried. 

His prayer was granted. High as heaven, behold 
Palace and Pyramid ; the brimming tide 

Of lavish Nile washed all his land with gold. 
Armies of slaves tolled ant-vvlse at his feet; 
World-circling traffic roared through mart and street; 
His priests were gods; his splce-balmed kings enshrined, 

Set death at naught In rock-ribbed charnels deep. 
Seek Pharaoh's race to-day, and ye shall find 

Rust and the moth, silence and dusty sleep. 

"Oh, World-God, give me Beauty!" cried the Greek. 

His prayer w^as granted. All the earth became 
Plastic and vocal to his sense; each peak. 

Each grove, each stream, quick with Promethean 
flame, 
Peopled the world with Imaged grace and light. 
The lyre was his, and his the breathing might 
Of the Immortal marble ; his the play 

Of diamond-pointed thought and golden tongue 
Go seek the sunshine-race, ye find to-day 

A broken column and a lute unstrung. 

"Oh, World-God, give me Power!" the Roman cried. 

His prayer was granted. The vast world was 
chained 
A captive to the chariot of his pride. 

The blood of myriad provinces was drained 
To feed that fierce, insatiable red heart. 
Invulnerably bulwarked every part 
With serried legions and with close-meshed Code; 

Within, the burrowing worm had gnawed its home ; 
A roofless ruin stands where once abode 

Th' imperial race of everlasting Rome. 

717 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

"Oh, Godhead, give me Truth!" the Hebrew cried. 

His prayer was granted. He became the slave 
Of the Idea, a pilgrim far and wide. 

Cursed, hated, spurned, and scourged with none to 
save. 
The Pharaohs knew him, and when Greece beheld, 
His wisdom wore the hoary crown of Eld. 
Beauty He hath forsworn, and Wealth and Power. 

Seek him to-day, and find in every land ; 
No fire consumes him, neither floods devour ; 

Immortal through the lamp w^ithin his hand. 

Emma Lazarus. 



Hebrew Cradle Song 

XJIGHT has on the earth descended, 
^ All around is silence deep, 

Sleep, my darling, I am with thee; 
Sleep a calm and peaceful sleep. 

I no lullabies shall sing thee; 

Songs are at an end to-night ; 
Sleep in peace, oh, sleep on sweetly, 

Long as sleep thou canst, my light. 

In our native fields aforetime. 

Wondrous songs we used to sing. 

Improvising them in gardens 

Turning green with early spring. 

Where grew daffodils and myrtles, 
Stately palms upreared their heights, 

Cypress trees spread wide their branches. 
Splendid roses blossomed bright. 

But those notes are hushed and silenced ; 

Ruined now our Zion lies; 
Mourning sounds instead of singing; 

Yea, for songs we hear but sighs. 

718 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

All thou needs must know, my darling, 

Of thy nation's piteous plight, 
Thou wilt learn and weep for sorrow, 

As thy mother weeps to-night. 

But why now in vain disturb thee? 

Let thy tranquil slumber last, 
Until over thee, my dearest, 

The dark day of rain hath passed! 

To the school, my son, I'll lead thee 
By the hand ; there thou shalt learn 

All our Bible and our knowledge. 

Wondrous pearls thou wilt discern — 

Pearls of wisdom in our Talmud, 

Gems our sages' lore affords; 
Thou shalt taste of prayer's first sweetness 

And the charm of God's great words. 

Ne'er forget thou art a Hebrew! 

Little son, remember well, 
Even to the grave, the stories 

That thy mother used to tell! 

EZEKIEL LeAVITT. 

(Translated by Alice Stone Blackwell.) 



Jewish Lull ah y 

IV^Y harp is on the willow-tree, 

^^^ Else would I sing, O love, to thee 

A song of long ago — 
Perchance the song that Miriam sung 
Ere yet Judea's heart was wrung 

By centuries of woe. 

7ig 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

I ate my crust in tears today, 

As scourged I went upon my way — 

And yet my darling smiled ; 
Aye, beating at my breast, he laughed — 
My anguish curdled not the draught — 

'Twas sweet with love, my child ! 

The shadow of the centuries lies 
Deep in thy dark and mournful eyes; 

But, hush ! and close them now, 
And in the dreams that thou shalt dream 
The light of other days shall seem 

To glorify thy brow! 

Our harp is on the willow-tree — 
I have no song to sing to thee, 

As shadows round us roll ; 
But, hush and sleep, and thou shalt hear 
Jehovah's voice that speaks to cheer 

Judea's fainting soul! 

Eugene Field. 



Patriotism 

From the Persian 

' I 'O each his country dearer far 
'*' Than the throne of Solomon; 
Thorns from home, too, dearer are 

Than myrtle or than cinnamon. 
Joseph, in the pride of State, 

Ruling over Egypt's strand 
Sighed, and would have changed his fate. 

For poverty in Canaan's Land. 

Translated by Robert Needham Cust. 



720 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Optimism 

'T'HE rose Is hid by prickly thorn, 

Behind each night there lurks a morn, 

Amidst most threat'ning sombre skies 

The many colored rainbow lies. 
No night was e'er so hopeless black 
That it at least one star did lack ; 

So pleasure lies conceal'd midst pain 

And joy is found in sorrow's train. 

I. Z. JOSEPHSON. 

To My Lyre 

'mONDERFUL Is my love 

The love that my songs ye Inspire; 
My spirit, my flame and my fire, 
My trophies, my treasures of old. 
My temples, my silver, my gold. 
My garden of flowers, my dove. 
My cornfort, my balm and my lyre 
The hopes m.y years are in ye 
More sweet than the w^orld above 
And the sweets of the world to be. 

Joseph Massel. 



To Walter Lionel de Rothschild on 
His Bar-Mitzvah 

'T'HINE Is the heritage of ancient birth, 

Age upon age hath dawned since first thy race 
Was cradled In the empurpled East: the place 

Whence seer and king have sprung — the great of earth. 

And thine the heritage of higher worth ; 

The large-souled Charity, whose pitying grace 
Hath left nor land nor sea without Its trace, 

And raised a plenteous harvest 'midst the dearth, 

But thine a greater heritage than these ; 

721 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

The heaven-born Faith, thy sires have taught the 
world ; 
Which lifts thine eyes to God without surcease, 

And bid thee guard His banner, wide unfurled. 
That deathless Faith make thou thy steadfast star, 
Thy heart shall know a peace no pain can mar. 

Louis B. Abrahams. 

Sonnet 

Addressed to Sir Moses Montefiore, Dec. lO, 1878. 

TF Patriarchal daj^s alone were thine — 

Though we might well adore the mighty Hand 

Which oft has led thee In the Promised Land 
To trace the glories of thine earlier line, 
Thou faithful servant of that Lord Divine 

Which tends like Shepherd true the minlshed band 

Of Israel — though such life in wisdom planned 
Might well our hearts to wondering faith incline, 
Now wonder yields to high and hallowing thought 

That faith alone could lead thine onward way 
And teach our souls with earthly cares distraught 

To follow through the gloom that brightening ray 
Which leads thee, now thine earthly work Is wrought. 

Leaning on God, to wait the coming day. 

Canon Jenkins. 



Sir Moses Montefiore 

C WEET blue-ej^ed Charity, devout and calm, 

^ Hath been the dear companion of his days, 
How hath he hearken 'd to her praj^erful lays, 

Sad-voic'd and plaintive as an angel's psalm ! 

She pointed and he hasten'd where the palm 
Sighs faintly in the pitiless Syrian raj^s, 
Where men sank gasping on the lone highways 

And cried aloud for succor and for balm. 

722 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

The sick he heal'd, the fallen rais'd he up; 
Light track'd his footsteps through the darksome land-^— 
And sav'd, men wept and bless'd him in their tears. 
Come, friends, lift we on high the loving cup 

And hail with greetings from our distant strand 
This hero crested with his hundred jears! 

E. Yancey Cohen. 



f^ ROUPS of radiant angels soaring 
^^ Upward in the sunshine's gleam ; 
Watched as through the gates of heaven, 

In their arms a form they bore ; 
And a thousand angel voices 

Sang the name of Montefiore ! 

Somewhere I have caught the echo, 

Drifting on till time shall end- 
Caught the sound of grief and mourning; 

For the poor have lost their friend ! 
Silent is the voice that pleaded. 

Motionless the hand that gave. 
And the voice that loved and pitied 

Stilled and pulseless in the grave. 

Softly rest his soul in slumber! 

He was weary, he was lone ; 
Long ago his household angel 

Flitted off to heaven's throne. 
Weep no tear, nor bow in sorrow, 

Praise the God we all adore, 
For He crowned the earth with blessing 

When he gave it Montefiore. 

Miriam Del Banco. 



TS life worth living? To the querulous cry 
•'■ Let this long record, lately closed, reply! 
A century of service to mankind ! 
Pessimist cold and cynic blandly blind, 

723 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

'Tis fitter comment on that query stale 

Than sneers that pall and arguments that fail. 

Long in the land his days, whose heart and hand 

All high and human causes could command ; 

Long in the land his memory will abide 

His country's treasure and his people's pride. 

Punch. 



j^OT 'mid the clash of arms he won 

An evanescent fam.e, 

Nor in a nation's councils gained 

A statesman's honored name; 

But in humanity's great cause 

He nobly did his part, 
So shall his loved memory be 

Enshrined in every heart. 

With lavish hand, on all alike, 

His charity bestowing, 
None sought in vain his kindly heart, 

With generous impulse glowing. 

More lasting far than marble shaft, 

Or mausoleum grand, 
His mem'ry shall remain, while sounds 

His fame in every land. 

Louis Meyerhardt. 



1 SAW — 'twas in a dream, the other night — 
* A man whose hair with age was thin and white ; 
One hundred years had bettered by his birth, 
And still his step was firm, his eye was bright. 

Before him and about him pressed a crowd. 
Each head in reverence was bared and bowed. 

And Jews and Gentiles in a hundred tongues 
Extolled his deeds and spake his fame aloud. 

724 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

I joined the throng, and, pushing forward, cried, 
"Montefiore!" with the rest, and vied 

In efforts to caress the hand that ne'er 
To want and worth had charity denied. 

So closely round him swarmed our shouting clan 
He scarce could breathe, and, taking from a pan 

A gleaming coin, he tossed it o'er our heads, 
And in a moment was a lonely man ! 

Ambrose Bierce. 



Jesse Seligman 

T_JIS was another race than mine 

* **• Another faith, from which mine sprung: 

He traced his lineage by another line, 

And gained his manhood in another tongue. 

Yet when he sought our common sky. 
And breathed the welcome of its air. 

His soul rose up, as eagles fly, 

To the full heights of manhood there. 

Oh, Brother ours! whose life has beamed 
With faith in God, with love of man. 

Through which thy patriot virtues streamed 
To bless and aid our noble land. 

I stand to-day beside thy bier. 

To own thy brotherhood divine, 
And proudly claim with many a tear, 

That Israel's God Is thine and mine. 

Noah Davis. 



725 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Benjamin Artom 

Chief Rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews. 

\Y/ITH mournful pomp they bore him to the grave 

With all the solemn pageantry of woe; 
No ancient right or custom would they waive 

Which might their grief and awe-struck reverence 

show ; 
With honour and with state they laid him low, 
And dignities as if a Prince had died ; 

He was a Prince — none nobler rank could know 
Than that he bore with such an honest pride — 
God's priest! A warrior chief fighting on Heaven's 
side! 

He came a stranger from his Southern shore. 

To colder climes, to natures less intense. 
He came — and was a stranger then no more, 

For with the music of his eloquence 
He won our hearts, and charmed our every sense. 

That music's dead, the earthly bonds are riven, 
And he who woke the chords is summoned hence, 

**The Gates of Hope" to which his thoughts were 
given 

Have flung their portals wide and shown the path 
to Heaven ! 

Patron of learning! Champion of the poor! 

These are the titles that he nobly gained. 
These are the honours that will still endure 

And teach mere earthly rank to be disdained. 
The empire cannot die for him who reigned 

By sympathy and knowledge; and the host 
That will perpetuate a name unstained, 

Poor, seeking wisdom, these shall be our boast. 

He loved them — let them comfort her who mourns 
him most! . 

Re Henry. 

726 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



Aaron Levy Green 

"M^OW dimly thro' our tears we see his Face, 
*" And treasure up his mem'ry in our hearts, 
He stood in front a model Priest and Man, 
Grand with a righteous energy for good, 
Resplendent with a love for all his kind ; 
But most of all his great love for his Race. 
No work too hard — no cause that wanted help. 
But he the foremost one in doing good. 
Honesty and Manliness and Truth, 
A trinity of virtues joined in him. 
Too soon for us — but not too soon for him 
Has he been taken into Rest and Life. 
For that perfection which he sought in us 
He now has found in Immortality. 
Dry up our tears — our God hath taken him; 
He knoweth best. And when we go to rest 
May it be found his bright example made 
Us worthy of joining him on High. 

Anonymous. 



Baroness de Rothschild 

"X* HOUGH life may fade, love never dies, 

And all but love, is now a dream 
To her, who in her long sleep lies 

Enwrapped in flowers, and love supreme. 
What, if the solemn shadows stir, 

To sobbing sighs and broken prayer. 
Love folds its mantle over her 

And shields her, in its tender care. 

Sadly the mystic hours of night 

Flit past, still undisturbed by these, 

Or sudden glow of morning light 
Or waking birds, or waving trees. 

727 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

She lies, who heeds not days and hours, 
The sweet, soft bird song, nor one tear 

Beneath her canopy of flowers 
Indifferent now to joy and fear. 

Earth's voices touch her not ; nor grieve 

Her warm and generous heart with pain, 
O sorrowing mourners, we beh'eve 

That God shall raise her up again, 
That in some half-guessed, happier sphere, 

Some perfect world, but part confessed 
To us poor mortals weeping here, 

"He giveth His beloved rest." 

And so Beloved, we part from you. 

We, clothed by you, and housed and fed, 
Not hopeless, though the words are true, 

Our blessed Baroness is dead ! 
The poor, your monument shall raise. 

Statelier than sculptured tomb above 
That cherished form, of love and praise 

Who loved her God ; whose God is love. 

Emily Marion Harris. 



Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield 

Born, December 21, 1804. Died, April 19, 1881. 

r^ISRAELI dead! The trappings of late days, 
^-"^ The Coronet, the Garter, slip aside, 
The Peer's emblazonment, the victor's bays, 
The pageantry of pride. 

Triumph's mere symbols, badges of success, 

Who weighs, who marks them now when all is said 

In simple words, low-breathed in heaviness? — 
Disraeli's dead ! 

728 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

So all have known him from that earlier time 

Of meteoric and all-daring youth, 
And through the season of his dazzling prime; 

And so to-day, in sooth, 

'Tis Benjamin Disraeli all will mourn. 
Nor he the less unfeignedly whose lance 

Against that shield and crest full oft had borne 
in combat a outrance. 

The fearless fighter and the flashing wit 

Swordless and silent ! 'Tis a thought to dim 

The )'oung Spring sunshine, glancing, as was fit, 
Bright at the last on him. 

Who knew no touch of winter in his soul, 

Holding the Greek gift yet in mind and tongue, 

And who, though faring past life's common goal. 
Loved of the gods died young. 

Like the Enchantress of the Nile, unstaled 
By custom as unchilled by creeping years, 

A world-compeller, who not often failed 
In fight with his few peers. 

Success incarnate, self-inspired, self-raised 

To that proud height whereat youth's fancy aimed 

Whom even those who doubted whilst they praised, 
Admired, e'en whilst they blamed. 

No more that fine invective's flow to hear. 
That buoyant wisdom or that biting wit! 

To see him and his one sole battle-peer 
Sharp counter hit for hit. 

No more to picture that impassive face. 
That unbetraying eye, that fadeless curl, 

No more in plot or policy to trace 
The hand of the great Earl! 

729 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

How strange It seems, and how unwelcome! Rest, 
Not least amidst our greatest! Who would dare 

Deny thee place and splendour with the best 
Who breathed our English air? 

Peace, lasting Peace that strife no more shall break, 
With Honour none may challenge, crown thee now 

Wherever laid, nor Faction's self would shake 
The laurel from thy brow. 

And England, who for thy quenched brightness grieves, 
Garlands the sword no more to leave its sheath, 

And, turning from thy simple gravestone, leaves 
A tear upon the wreath. Punch. 

Peace — and Honor 

LJUSHED are the sounds of party-strife 
^ **" In reverence round the quiet bed, 
As all the busy streams of Life 

Seem stayed beside one spirit fled: 
And England sends the message on. 
To West and East, — a great man gone. 

He, but a few short days ago 

Held in a nation's half-mistrust. 
Here feared, there followed, lying low, 

Where all may trample on his dust, 
Lies safe with laurels round his brow, — 
His party's then, his England's now. 

Strong loves he conquered on his way, 

Strong as the enmities he woke. 
And the loosed passions of the day 

In praise and anger round him broke: 
Anger and Enmity's o'erthrown, 
Death has for sister, Love alone. 

Men called him alien, deemed him set 

On dreams of empire not of ours, 
And prone true empire to forget 

730 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

In the long clash of jarring powers: 
But England's 'scutcheon blazons still 
The motto of his life, — I will. 

In steady purpose, steady toil, 

He followed, and he won, the prize. 

Which through the Senate's fierce turmoil 
Lighted, but dazzled not, his eyes: 

Nor rank, nor fortune, smoothed the course; 

He dared, and conquered, and by force. 

As patient as the great should be. 

As watchful as the purposed are. 
He marked power's ebbing, flowing sea, 

Now sparkling near, now murmuring far, 
Till with strong hand he grasped the helm, 
Through storm and shine to steer a realm. 

And when. Life's threescore years and ten 

In the long passage overpast, 
He yielded up the helm again. 

He stood as steady to the last: 
Not Caesar's robe, when Caesar died, 
Was folded with a calmer pride. 

Calmly he gave the reins of State, 
As first he held them, self-possessed; 

And undismayed, as unelate, 

Turned to the love once loved the best, 

And wooed^ from strife of tongues apart. 

The Muse of Story to his heart. 

So, England's Minister, good-night! 

Nor praise, nor blame, can move thee now ; 
Safe from the fierce and public light 

Which beat upon thy vessel's prow: 
Thy place Is with the great alone. 
Not one's nor other's — England's own. 

Herman C. Merivale. 

731 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Leopold Zunz 

'T'O thee o'er whose fresh-closed tomb 

The early violets and snowdrops bloom, 
With these, for thee, I interweave 
This votive wreath of laurel leaf. 

Thine was a spirit of an earlier age. 
When nobler triumphs graced the stage, 
Whereon our country's heroes moved, 
Who gloriously their guerdon proved. 

And thine it was to flash a clearer light 
O'er the tragedy of an age-long night, 
And trace, in living words, the story 
Of Israel's virile thought and former glory. 

Wakening the echoes of a far-off time, 
In strains scarce less sublime. 
Than those the halls of Zion rang. 
When, o'er the land her minstrels sang. 

Leaving to Israel a lingering ray, 

A promised dawn of a brighter day, 

Long o'er thy mem'ry a nation's love will dwell, 

Nor soon nor yet will bid a last farewell. 

J. F. 



Moritz Steinschneider 

TF I had known, dear Master, when of late 
■'' I held thy hand within my own to say 

The thousand things I'd thought of on the way, 
But sheer forgot for very awe to state; — 
If I had known the summons was so near 

And that thy presence never more would grace 
The little room that was the trysting place 

732 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Of every scholar, booklover and seer 

That came from North, from South, from East, and 

West 
To call himself thy pupil and be blest — 
I fain would have besought thee to allow 
My unclean lips to kiss the wizard hand 
That made of learning such a wonderland. 
And lost its matchless cunning only now. 

George Alexander Kohut. 



Simeon Singer 

**/^H, weep not for the dead." Alas! how weak 
^^ The solemn call to dry our tear-dimmed eyes, 
Or stay the drops which aching hearts bespeak, 

While hopeless grief in fruitless effort tries 
To scan the misty, drear and sombre space, 

Which parts us from the presence that we love. 
And from those beaming eyes and saintly face 

And lips that taught the way to realms above. 

Strong, manly mind to gentle heart allied. 

Fit partners of a noble soul that rose 
To duty's highest calls, though sorely tried, 

Scorning the urgent temptings of repose ; 
To him the heart of Childhood bounded forth, 

And feeble Age forgot the weight of years. 
And Youth reflected back the genial mirth, 

Which turned to rippling joy their sight and tears. 

Say when the bugle call of noble Cause, 

Drew forth the lightning flashes from his eye; 
In God's own work he knew not rest nor pause, 

And Faith and Mercy made his pulses fly, 
Nor recked he, when a knightly lance he broke 

In chivalrous tilt for Progress and for Good, 
Though in the clang of strife he felt the stroke, 

Yet calm and strong and nobly dumb he stood. 

733 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Too soon, alas! did Time with heavy hand 

Lay on his head his chaste prophetic snow, 
And beckon to the far-off promised land, 

The goal to reach with weary steps and slow. 
With brave and dauntless heart he nobly strode 

Along the path of duty, cheery, bright, 
And uncomplaining bore his heavy load, 

Till summoned out of darkness into light. 

Though Earth our gentle Mother in her arms 

Benignly folds thee in thy peaceful sleep. 
And in her strong and all-embracing heart 

The mortal fabric of thy frame doth keep. 
Freed from the chains that bound thy earthly love, 

Thy spirit joins the Choir of Saints above. 
Whose joyous voices calling, welcome thee, 

"An Angel of the Lord of Hosts is he." 

John Chapman. 



My Father s Bible 

'T'HERE is one book, far dearer than the rest. 
Upon my treasured shelves: It is not bound 
In costly skin or vellum, yet profound 

Is the. esteem and rev'rence in my breast. 
As I now lift it from its wonted place. 
To bless it first, and read it for a space: — 

It gives me comfort now, though time was when 
Fierce anguish smote my soul, as, all unseen, 
The crumbled leaves I turned, and saw between 

The crystal drops of sorrow once again 

Which wrung my blessed father's spirit then; — 
But now I read it, ever so serene, 

And close the Bible gently, when I've done. 

And kiss its covers, too, when I'm alone. 

George Alexander Kohut. 



734 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



David Kaufmann 

A MID the murm'ring din and seething strife 

^^ Of all the world's contending victories, 
Thou, modest scholar, writing histories 

Hast caused Judaea's past to pulse with life; 

Hast conjured, with the magic of thy touch. 
Whose quiver had the thrill of the sublime, 
The soul from its clay ; and hast rescued time 

From its only foe: oblivion's clutch, 

Which holds enthralled beneath its aged crust 
The teeming mysteries of throbbing thought 
So many tried to find, yet few have sought 

To read aright, and read aright, to trust. 
Great Poet-Thinker, Critic of the Past, 
Thine is a memory to live, to last! 

George Alexander Kohut. 



Gustav Gottheil 

(^ CD healed him while he slept, 
^■^ And took His shepherd home, 
And many thousand tender hands 
Now bear him to the tomb. 

His life was crowded with the deeds 

Which crown his calm repose. 
Upon his gleaming coat of arms. 

No guilty glory glows. 

Dream on, O Prince in Israel, dream. 

In thy celestial home, 
While many thousand loyal friends 

Chant Kaddish at the tomb. 

George Alexander Kohut. 



735 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Sonnet * 

To Solomon Schechter 

npHY spirit, Sage, is ever on the wing, 
■*• And, soaring midway 'tvvixt the earth and sky, 

Those higher kindred of thy soul draw nigh 
To whom thy lofty thoughts, transfigured, cling, 
From wrinkled parchment and decaying script, 

Thou lurest long-lost Wisdom fragmentwise. 

Rejoicing and enlightening the eyes. 
There's none in modern Jewry, thus equipped, 
To teach the truth and spread abroad The Law, 

And with the peal of prophecy intone 

How Beauty shines in Holiness alone. 
And that to hold the Spirit well in awe 

The letter must be guarded, not forsook. 

Ye Race of Priests, Ye People of the Book! 

George Alexander Kohut. 



Solomon Schechter 

A NOTHER Moses of our race 
^^ Was called to Heaven's holy place, 
The Paradise where be the few 
Who nearer Heaven daily grew. 
Until on Pisgah heights of lore 
They saw the Heavens' Promised Shore, 
And God with kisses bade them be 
Their living immortality. 
O master, with the wizard's spell, 
A sun of lore in your dying fell. 
In error's night our pillar of light 
Our Torah lost its bravest knight. 
A godly Heine whose smile of grace 
Made sham and folly hide their face. 
A lion of learning, j^ou 

♦Suggested by Professor Schechter's luminous epistle on "Spiritual 
Religion " in the Jewish Chronicle, November 30, 1899. 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

The soul of Judaism knew; 

The Torah was your song and wing, 

O'er all the scholars you were king. 

Columbus of Ben Sira's book 

An X-ray was your every look. 

A character unique you were, 

The Torah's great interpreter. 

A Titan lost the world, a man, 

Who was a great American. 

Embodiment of wisdom, he 

Loved law no less than liberty. 

God took a Lincoln mould alit 

With gleams of humor and of wit 

With light of genius and of art, 

And made a scholar with a heart. 

And lo, the seer Schechter smiled, 

His mind a lion, his heart a child. 

O Gaon of our day, your lore. 

The testament of truth it bore; 

And God, not self, you did adore. 

Through life and lore our God you saw; 

Your life, the tablet of His law. 

In Torah you have left your heart. 

An ark of God from us you part. 

You found the gems of Torah, we 

Will make them our Treasury. 

From many a realm some prize you brought, 

The jeweled word, the diamond thought. 

But oh ! a holier land you trod, 

You found the manuscript of God. 

Alter Abelson. 

Emma Lazarus 

"yjjVHEN on thy bed of pain thou layest low 
^^ Daily w^e saw thy body fade away, 

Nor could the love wherewith we loved thee stay 
For one dear hour the flesh borne down by woe; 
But as the mortal sank, with what white glow 

737 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Flamed the eternal spirit, night and day; 

Untouched, unwasted, though the crumbling clay 
Lay wrecked and ruined ! Ah, is it not so, 
Dear poet-comrade, who from sight hast gone; 

Is it not so the spirit hath a life 
Death may not conquer? But, O dauntless one! 

Still must we sorrow. Heavy is the strife 
And thou not with us; thou of the old race 
That with Jehovah parleyed, face to face. 

Richard Watson Gilder. 



r^EAR bard and prophet, that thy rest is deep, 

^^ Thanks be to God ! Not now on thy heart falls 

Rumor intolerable. Sleep, O sleep! 

See not the blood of Israel that crawls 
Warm yet, into the moon and night ; that cries 

Even as of old, till all the world stands still 
At rapine that even to Israel's agonies 

Seems strange and monstrous, a mad dream of ill. 
Thou sleepest! Yea, but as in grief we said: — 

There is a spiritual life unconquerable. 
So, bard of the ancient people, though being dead 

Thou speakest and thy voice we love full well. 
Never thy holy memory forsakes us ; 
Thy spirit is the trumpet that awakes us! 

Richard Watson Gilder. 



Under No Skies But Ours 

Emma Lazarus 

I 
NDER no skies but ours, her grave be made! 



U 



'Neath blue unblurred and clear stars never 
shamed 
'TIs meet that she be laid ! 

Just Heaven accorded that sad right we claimed: 

738 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

The Old World gave its guest 

Back to the loving West. 

The city of her birth, which exiles hail 

From that broad-breasted harbor, known so long. 
Forever heaving in its rippled mail 
Of steely waves, to clasp the island-seat 
Of Freedom — whom she sang with voice so sweet, 

With voice so sweet and strong! 
Not in the shadow of the shameful Past, 
But in the radiance of the days to be. 

The glory of the brows of Liberty. 
The singer of that splendor sleeps at last; 
Proud Spring, shall heap her painless rest with flowers 
Under no skies but ours! 



II 

On the far azure, eastern hills, where prone. 

Like slowly-crumbling pillars, memories lie, 
Discrowned, and overthrown. 
The wrinkled Orient calls upon her sons, 

Uncomforted, with an unceasing cry: 
"Come, come, ye wandering ones! 
A nation's hearth-stone waits the sacred fire!" 
But, quenching their desire, 
"Mother, not yet," they sigh, 
"Not yet; the silver trumpets have not blown, 

Nor eastward moves in heaven the column-cloud. 
Haply, with faint host strengthened, by-and-by, 

With psalms, with shawns, with ring of cymbals loud 
Shall Israel return unto his own; 
Not yet — alas, not yet! 
To-day his face is set 
Westw^ard : for there the Foster mother stands. 

Young, forceful, mild, with frank, front-beaming 
light, 
And large, warm-welcoming hands. 
Lo, in her spacious lands 

The arm of Israel shall gather might!" 

739 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

III 
This was her home — aye, hers, whose noble pride 
Had that dear name denied 
To soil whereon her brothers suffered wrong: 

Yet of another country she was free, — 

The golden vales, the fields of Arcady, 
The woods that whispered, and the streams of song! 
Among the lucent marbles of the Greek 
'Twas hers to pass, and charm grand lips to speak, 
But as in siren palace reared apart, 

One born to lead his people through the sea. 
Saw the Egyptian smite, and felt the smart 
Quickening the fire-seed in his Hebrew heart 

To burst in blaze — so she! 
Yea, in that bitterest year 

When Russia spurned the Jew, 

She, too, ah, from a lovelier land she, too. 
Went forth, and left, for service more austere, 
Pure Beauty smiling in the fair white fane 
(The strong sweet voice we nevermore shall hear) 
Thrilled sword-like through the ear 
Of whoso slept, though sleep were dull as death! 

O strange, O holiest hour 

Of rapture and of power. 

When a great soul is girded with a Cause! 

Finding at length, led on by deep hid laws. 
That Deed to do, wherefore God lent His breath, 
O Awful Hour more strange. 
Of chill surprise and change. 
Command most stern that bids the doer pause 
Ere yet that Deed is done, 
The trump be silent, ere the field is won ! 

How green, in coming years, 
For her the glistening victor-palm had sprung! 
Woe for the words unsaid, the song unsung! 

Speech falters into tears 

Tears — but such tears as fed the vital root 
Of Hope, and haste the time of bloom and leaf. 
None shall forbid high Grief: 

740 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

But doubt she had forbidden, who deeply know 
The vigor of that stem whence life she drew, 
The sure succession, the unfailing fruit! 

IV 

O faithful Israel, that keep'st aflame 

The Lamp perpetual with remembrance due 
Of the undying deed! Be this her fame: 
The source of steadfast purpose, tireless borne. 
If, in some dazzling morn 
That breaks on e'en the blank eyes of the blind, 

The flag of Judah shall indeed unfurl. 
The hero-Ezra on his arm shall bind 
No lordlier hand, no subtler amulet 

Than her linkek songs of pearl, 
And rubies passion-red as with rare life-blood wet! 
We, too, we, too, have claim 
On this uniting name! 

We of the West may bow where Israel weeps. 
Beneath our clear stars, never veiled in shame 

She woke to life, and now, alas, she sleeps, 
(Proud May-time heap her painless rest with flowers!) 
Under no skies but ours! 

Helen Gray Cone. 



O 



NCE more a singing soul's most airy vessel 
Hath on Its journey sped ; 
Once more we linger by the shadowy waters, 
Mourning a spirit fled. 

Yet, lingering here, we catch the tender vision 

Of Beauty, throned above, 
As fondly welcoming a spirit laden 

With beauty and with love; 

For she whg left us hath with love deep freighted 

Her spirit's ample powers — 
She filled her life, her very name with beauty. 

Like a rare urn with flowers. 

Allan Eastman Cross. 
741 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

A RARE, sweet daughter of a wondrous race 
^^ She flamed with all the old-time prophet's fire, 

And woke again the echoes of that lyre 
That from the haunted Saul the clouds could chase, 
In her own might the heart of Miriam trace, 

Or Deborah, aroused to holy ire 

When her loved people did her soul inspire; 
Yet lacked she nothing of a woman's grace. 
Would she had lived to right her people's wrongs, 

To thrill and lift them, with her grand soul's might, 
And make them worthy of her noble thought! 
But let her Israel still sing her songs. 

And in her counsels learn to find delight, 
And not in vain her suffering soul has wrought. 

MiNOT JuDSON Savage. 



priRE from high, holy heaven down-drawn, 
■'■ By her strong soul and true. 
Flashed over Israel, a sudden dawn 

With star-song wild and new, 
A moment silent in her fair, firm hand 

The harp of David lay. 
Then gulfs of hopeless, sorrowing years were spanned 

When she began to play, 
Hers was a woman's song, whose martial force 

All preludes down-hurled — 
Razed every wall that barred its noble course 

Around the hindering world. 
On far blood-hallowed hills the trampled dust 

Of patriarch sires did glow. 
And matchless swords, long buried in their rust, 

Leaped eager for the blow. 
In their lone tombs the Hebrew heroes heard, 

The prophets felt and knew. 
How once again divinest courage stirred 

The genius of the Jew. 

742 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

A Maccabean Influence thrilled the sky, 

And shone from star and sun, 
The banner of old days was passing by 

With toph and clarion! 

James Maurice Thompson. 



/^OULDST thou have lived to share w^Ith us this 
hour 

Of grateful praise, 
When minds of men are turned towards the far 

Columbus days. 
Then would thy lyre spell out thy wond'rous thoughts 

In sweetest strain. 
Thy soul would sing to us a touching song 

Of fitful Spain; 
Of monarchs that thrust forth a helpless band 

Into the night; 
Of monarchs that bade speed to him who found 

This land of light. 
Ah ! now we miss thee. More and more to-day 

We wish thee here, 
Thy words are lacking, and the many moods 

That brought us cheer. 
Where are the bright Inspiring tones of love 

That gave us rest; 
And taught us by their ever-charmed lines 

That thou wert blest? 

Gone! Gone! 'TIs true, but not without their good 

In lustre shed. 
Through hearts whose flames were kindled by the light 

Of one since dead. 

Henry Cohen. 



743 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Joseph Joachim 

DELOV'D of all to whom the muse Is dear, 

Who hid her spirit of rapture from the Greek 
Whereby our art excelleth the antique, 

Perfecting formal beauty to the ear: 

Thou hast been in England many a year 
The interpreter who left us nought to seek, 
Making Beethoven's inmost passion speak, 

Bringing the soul of great Sebastian near. 

Their music liveth ever and 'tis just 

That thou good Joachim so high thy skill 
Rank (as thou shalt upon the heavenly hill) 

Laurel'd with them, for thy ennobling trust 
Remembered when thy loving hand is still 

And every ear that heard thee stopt with dust. 

Robert Bridges. 



Frederic David Mocatta 

r\^ what avail in low estate to weep, 

^""^ To take our harps from off the willow trees ? 

Will harp or tablet wake him from his sleep? 

Our tears run down — of what avail are these? 
For him, the scholar's hope, the poor man's need, 

Who knew the art to benefit unknown, 
Who cast at eve and morn the holy seed 

On rugged valleys neither eared nor sown. 
Though many a tongue a ready writer's pen, 

Of many kindnesses might tell the tale, 
Of what avail these words of many men 

Or dirge, or episode — of what avail? 
Be strong and of good courage! freed from III, 

Fast In life's bundle thy sweet soul Is tied, 
Sleep! loosed from this low world by God's own will, 

And wake! with God's own likeness, satisfied! 

James Mew. 
744 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



Mrs, Ellis A, Franklin 

IT was not granted to her she should lead 5 

A mighty cause or grace a learned throng, "** 

The humbler task was hers; she lived among 
Her children and she taught them to succeed 
To her inheritance of faith and deed. 

And what she wrought, unwitting of all wrong, 

Unwitting of her worth, she let belong 
To others, and to others left the meed. 
The tower to its eminence on high 

Would not have risen at the author's will 
Alone; those who builded it may die, 

The name of the designer never will. 
So those whose fame and work no records hold 
Inspire the deeds that live for time untold. 

Anonymous. 



Oscar Cohen 

/^H, that death should lay thee low, 

^^^ With thy fame not zenith high! — 

Ah, the pity that the foe 

Should have thought thee ripe to die! 

Like the greatest one of old — 

Moses, strong of heart and hand — 

Thou hast led thy wandering fold 
Onward to the promised land. 

Stranger to thy creed and race, 

Alien to the older Word, 
Yet I loved thee! On thy face 

Shone the glory of the Lord. 

H. B. Gayfer. 



745 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Leo N. Levi 

I ET no lament break forth but rather sing 

^"^ Hosannas to the Everlasting King; 

Let Hallelujahs everywhere resound 

And animate the newly hallowed ground 

Where lovingly a garland we may place 

To symbolize the homage of his race. 

No wringing hands, nor shrill-voiced grief shall lift 

Our hero from his consecrated crypt; — 

If ye would truly honor him, who bore 

The ensign of the fathers to the fore, 

Then follow on, and raise the battle-flag, 

And hasten on each footstep that would lag. 

Unfold forsooth the ancient standard, and 

Obey our leader's clarion-toned command. 

George Alexander Kohut, 



Esther J. Ruskay 



W 



'E meet to-day to call upon thy name, 

With wistful eyes to contemplate and trace 
Each feature of thy well-remembered face; 
And as we light the faint memorial flame 
To hear above the cadence of our prayer 
The brush of wings across the tranquil air, 
As though thy radiant spirit rustled there; — 
To see thee once again, ere yet we go 

Our devious ways, unmindful of the gloom, 
And know that though we robed thee for the tomb 
Thou livest yet, transfigured and aglow, 
In far-ofif fields of fragrant asphodel, 
Where seraphs and thy starry kindred dwell — 
Revered and loved and mourned in Israel. 

George Alexander Kohut. 



746 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



Joseph Mayor As her 

F^EEP be thy sleep, brave Prophet-Priest of God! 

Thy spirit-wars are waged, and tranquil now — 

The laurel of our homage on thy brow — 
Thou dreamest; whilst we whisper overawed, 

And name thee in our hearts, and deep and low 

Say Kaddish o'er thy cerements of snow. 
Thine be the peace of God, great, restless heart! 

No more shall wound thee Israel's native woe; 

No more shall strive against thee friend or foe; 
Thou art our stern-eyed seer — the counterpart 
Of Amos and Elijah, blent in one. 

Our kindred sense perceives thee, and we trace 

The Saintliness of Ages on thy face, 
Now that thy work is gloriously done. 

George Alexander Kohut. 

Louis Loeb 

'T'HINE was a poet's soul ; thine was a heart 
*" Where love and friendship, truth and right 

abode. 
Hebraic rhapsody and Grecian ode 
Surged in thy blood. Nature stood not apart; 

With gracious smile she wedded thee to Art; 
The seeing eye, the wizard touch bestowed, 
Into thy brain her forms and colors flowed, 

Transfixed by Inspiration's flaming dart. 

Sweet were the idylls by the genius wooed : 

The misty dawn, bright morning, radiant noon, 
The joyous life, the forests' solitude, — 

And peaceful reverie. Thine now the boon 

Of bearing a full sheaf, through struggles rude, 

Into the twilight's vale, — but all too soon. 

Louis Marshall. 



747 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Josef Israels 

TY/HEN the fisher-folk of the Netherland coast 

On perilous cruises sped, 
When the howling wind and the swirling foam 

A message of danger read — 
There was one to measure the dread of the sea 

For the helpless women then, 
Whose bread was found on the crest of the wave 

By the sturdy fishermen. 

There was one to read the cry of the heart 

As it sobbed to the lonely stone, 
On the mound of the man who came no more, 

Who left her all alone — 
Alone to the wind and the sea and the storm 

That had claimed their murderous fill; 
Alone to the break of the taunting deep 

And a cottage void and still. 

There was one to sound the plumb of despair 

In the wandering martyr race 
That flies with the wind in the fearful round 

Of an everlasting chase; 
To note the patient shoulder shrug. 

The pathos of mind and eye. 
In the form of the man with the mortal wounds, 

Who yet disdained to die. 

Be good to the soul of the master, Lord, 

Who limned with a deathless hand, 
The w^oes of the men w^hose mettle you try— 

The waifs of the sea and the land. 
Be good to his artist soul, O Lord, 

For he ate of the bread of tears 
And drank from the bitter cup of those 

Who count the leaden years. 

Elias Lieberman. 

748 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

Ph edre 
To Sarah Bernhardt 

I—IOW vain and dull this common world must seem 
To such a One as thou, who should'st have 
talked 
At Florence with Mirandola, or walked 

Through the cool olives of the Academe; 

Thou should'st have gathered reeds from a green stream 
For Goat-foot Pan's shrill piping, and have played 
With the white girls in that Phneacian glade 

Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream. 

Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay 

Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again 
Back to this common world so dull and vain, 

For thou wert weary of the sunless day. 
The heavy fields of scentless asphodel, 
The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell. 

Oscar Wilde. 

Mayer Sulzberger 

'T'HE muse, that first lent grace to gratitude, 

Voicing a rhythmic prayer from thankful hearts. 
Long since, when passion lisped in accents crude, 

Nor knew its handmaid in this art of arts — 
Has sounded many a measure through the days, 
In stately epic and in roundelays. 

The sack of cities, the brave deeds of men, 
The doom of Gods, the majesty of Kings; 

Strange mysteries beyond our earthly ken, 
And gentle fancy's sweet Imaginings — 

These have the poets woven Into rhyme. 

To make the past throb in the present time. 

But I will weave the laurel of my rhyme 
To crown the living with an honor due; 

That one, who fearless In the trembling time 

Stands forth his people's bulwark, strong and true, 

749 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

May know the muse that graced the ancient days 
Has not forgotten how to laud and praise. 

If we have grown into such gracious worth, 

And are assembled in this galaxy 
To laud the work to which these years gave birth, 

Is it not fitting that our thoughts shall be 
Fashioned to form, a grateful aureole 
For him whose labor led us to this goal? 

Let mine the pride and pleasure be to-night 

To sing his worth, who is our guide and friend ; 

Who lifts a beacon by whose far-flung light 
We seem to see the lingering anguish end. 

Scholar and jurist, need I speak the name 

That sheds on all of us its lustrous fame? 

How shall I praise him fitly, or begin? — 
Lauding endowments of th' absorbing mind. 

Where all things ever known seem gathered in 
To grow into rich blessings for mankind, 

We but the medal's silver side behold — 

Though fair its sheen, the other side is gold. 

For wedded to this rare mentality, 

'There beats within his breast a Jewish heart. 
That pleads and throbs in ceaseless sympathy 

To right the wrong 'neath which his brethren smart, 
The nameless wrong, to which he gave a name — 
To prove a Russian envoy's lasting shame. 

Small need, in truth, to bring In proud array 
The gracious giving of his bounteous thought. 

Wherever Jewish learning lights our way, 
His hand has labored and his genius wrought. 

A man of men ! 'Twill be our boast we knew 

And held in love, our country's foremost Jew! 

Felix N. Gerson. 



750 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



Isaac M. Wise 

l_JE came into the Camp of Creed, 

The Sword of Strength within his hand, 
To scatter forth the bigot breed 

And smite them from the Promised Land ; 
To hew each hoary falsehood down 

And humble ancient arrogance, 
And Error fled before his frown 

While Truth was glad beneath his glance. 

He labored where his Duty led — 

Unflinching stood in ev'ry storm 
That beat about his fearless head, 

And thundered forth the word "Reform!" 
Earth's farthest nations heard his voice 

Unto the utmost purple seas, 
And all found reason to rejoice 

From Polar lands to Pyrenees. 

From depths of long, nigrescent nights 

We grasp the gospel that he gave, 
A message come from starry heights. 

Sent forth to succor and to save. 
If Jew or Gentile matters not. 

For rights and righteousness of each. 
Alike was wrought his toiling thought, 

And flamed the splendor of his speech. 

Our reaching reason gropes along 

His lofty path toward the light, 
Consoled and strengthened by the song 

His spirit sends us from his flight. 
We pray our searching souls may find 

The higher things for which he stood — ■ 
He fought for freedom of the mind 

And for a broader brotherhood. 

A modern Moses sent to lead 
His people up to lustrous lands, 

751 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

To free them from the chains of creed 

And superstition's cruel bands; 
To guide uncertain feet from out 

The darkened paths in which they stray, 
Amid the desert sands of doubt 

Unto the everlasting day. 

He told not of God's wrath, but taught 

The lesson of His love instead, 
Till narrow tenets came to naught 

And fierce fanaticism fled. 
Who knew his mental majesty, 

Or felt his nature's gentle grace, 
From pious prejudice was free 

Nor nursed a senseless hate of race. 

Yes, he was great as men are great 

Who scorn the cramping lines of creed, 
Who leave us still our earth's estate 

Yet fill our nature's inmost need. 
And so with each recurring Spring, 

While roses blow and lilies bloom, 
The world will tender tribute bring 

To lay upon his hallowed tomb. 

Walter Hurt. 



i 



("God's finger touched him and he slept!") 

A BOVE the grief of Israel soars a voice 
^^ Rebuking him who weeps ; 
Bidding the righteous for his sake rejoice. 
Who, clothed with honor, sleeps. 

The victor, bearing home unsullied spoil, 

The leader, whom God led. 
Sleeps 'neath the laurels of completed toil. 

That crowns his hoary head. 

752 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

As Moses, through the wilderness of old, 

His people led aright. 
So he, from worn-out creeds and forms grown cold, 

Led on to warmth and light. 

And as old shackles fell from Israel's feet, 

And broader visions rose, 
He rested not, until life's task complete 

Had earned Death's sweet repose. 

The tired hands upon his breast are crossed. 

The noble heart is stilled ! 
Yet think not that God's promise shall be lost 

Which he so long fulfilled. 

His mantle shall descend, in God's own time. 

Unto some worthy one 
Who portions Israel heritage sublime 

From sire to son. 

Our leader sleeps; his spirit through the age 

Shall live uncramped and free ; 
While angels wrote his name upon the page 

Of immortality! Ida Goldsmith Morris. 



DEACE and remembrance! All the great 

Of Israel's line his brothers are — 
Leader and prophet, priest and king; 
Aye, and the bright and morning star! 

With force and fire and lofty aim 
He labored, all his crowded years: 

Order from chaos, light from gloom 

He brought, and banished narrowing fears. 

Nor bronze nor marble rear to him 

Whose fame transcends their poor degree! 

His deeds are noblest monument; 
His life is immortality! 

Edna Dean Proctor. 

753 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

A FAR the reaches of our land one day, 

*^ Grim tidings, visitants of grief confessed, 

As wan the sun full orbed had died away 

In sky-slopes, crimson sheen caressed — 

"Our prince is gone among the blessed." 

Entwined the olive branch with cypress bough, 
Alternate tales of peace and woe shall tell 

Unlanguaged glory of a man and how 
God's angels kissed him ere he fell, 
And sealed his eyes in slumber's spell. 

Though Israel's heart-chords wrung with anguished 
love, 
Now fain his peerless presence would reclaim ; 

Yet, free from weighing durance here ; above 
To high emprise he still doth aim, 
Shrined Nestor dear of sainted name. 

In legend heralded a school on high, 

With seraphs' welcome waits our pilgrim guest; 
There, world-famed patriarchs his footfall nigh 

Now echoing hear in halls of rest. 

His heart to theirs in love Is prest. 

Grief's floodgates pour their unstemmed tide amain, 
Our prayers vying throng the stricken skies; 

Oh, give us back your sunshine once again ! 
Undimmed let flash once more your eyes! 
Our Father hears not, will not rise ! 

The flowers leagued have taken him away. 

Wee velvet violets and smilax fair; 
They called him at the close of shadowed day. 

With amaranths to crown him where 

God's garden greens for e'er and e'er. 

Each day the nursling bud shall weep for him, 
Their beaded tears the lucent dew shall be; 

754 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

When sleep-locked world Is dawning ashen dim, 
Their fragrance benlsons to thee 
Shall sweet ascend as ofE'rIngs free. 

Come, brethren, Master would not have us grieve, 
For sacred joy he loved God's labor due; 

His mansion unlnvaded let us leave, 
With zeal his mission work anew. 
Disciples, Israel's saving dew! 

Nepenthe mingles with the last farewell. 

Oft sunbeams braided are with threads of rain; 

The aftermath of grief sweet hope doth tell — 
"We'll meet again, we'll meet again. 
In life that knows no parting pain." 

Harry Weiss. 



Vy/HY look ye to the dead? Awake! 

O Israel, be strong — 
Be strong to make the truth and right 

Triumphant over wrong; 
Know you, O Israel, that he — 
He lives and Is anear to you; 

And tho' surges roll, 

That the Master Soul 
Will guide you safely through. 

No need had he for dirges, and 

No need for bells to chime ; 
For heard ye not the night winds play 

A funeral march sublime — 
A requiem on nature's harp. 
As he on that April day — 

From the shadow-land 

To the golden strand. 
In spirit w^Inged his way. 

• 755 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

And when the veil was rent and he 

Beheld the Father's face, 
He lived, and in Him found his life, 

Saved by His loving grace; 
His faith to glorious sight was changed, 
As he stood in the presence of Him, 

And of those who trod, 

As the sons of God, 
Thro' the shadows dark and dim. 

And saw ye not the glory light 

That stole athwart life's sea? 
It left the impression on him of 

An immortality; 
For when he shed life's robe of clay, 
He smiled as his spirit fled — 

And it lit his face 

With a tender grace — 
The cold face of the dead. 

And nobler far than granite shaft, 

Which storms in time will dim, 
The Hebrew Union College stands, 

A monument to him ; 
While those who knew him — loved him, say 
His breast held a lion's heart; 

For the play of life, 

'Mid its din and strife, 
He played the better part. 

The victor he, though laurel wreath 

Crowned not his aged head ; 
Still God's reflected glory lit 

His face when he was dead. 
And better that than all the crowns, 
. The world at one's feet might lay — 

As one takes his flight, 

'Mid the shadow-light, 
To find eternal day. 

Albert Frank Hoffmann. 

756 



THE MODERN PERIOD 



Ida Straus 

Vjr/E wonder at, we praise your life, 
^^ For crowning love with name of wife, 
Whose love was young in sunset-time, 
As in the blush of morning's prime. 
We cry: "Oh, what a miracle she!" 
And thus confess how small are we! 
Can rose be otherwise than rose? 
Can light be less than light ? Can those 
Wno love be less than love? So you 
To your angel spirit were but true. 
They dreamt she died? O, can it be. 
Since love alone's immortality, 
And love doth live through such as she? 
You live in death. 'Tis we are dead, 
In life. For you to love were wed. 
Your love was gold and ours dross. 
The sea alone can sigh our loss 
Of you. The morning stars alone 
Can sing your fame to years unflown. 
For all we say but tells anew 
How small are we ; how great are you I 

Alter Abelson. 



CHE gladly shared his cup of death. She sought 
*^ And chose his stainless shroud of icy sea, 

Her heart was his, to sink with him her plea, 
When strained to seek the shore. Her only thought. 
To hold his hand and help him die. She caught 

His courage, and felt the rhapsody 

Of joining him in death's wild jubilee 
Beneath the roar of sea with soul unwrought. 
She was the perfect wife that loved her mate. 
Content to crown her life with mutual fate. 
She clung to him, her soul of soul, her light; 
Without him all were black as starless night. 

757 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

To-day she sleeps with him in Neptune's grave, 
Because she loved him only, and was brave. 

Bernard Gruenstein. 



A tribute to the women who went down to death 
with their husbands — suggested by Mrs. Isidor Straus's 
devotion. 

A S side by side they traveled through the years 

'**' Strong in a love that daily grew in power, 
So they together faced their final hour 

With hearts whose steadfast courage conquered fears; 

Eager for life, yet dauntless volunteers 

Among the ranks of death. So great deeds flower 
From scenes of tragedy. So great souls :ower 

Above the grave and bid us dry our tears! 

And womanhood throughout the world must thrill 

Before the glory of that sacrifice 
To love and loyalty. The ready will 

That chose to die rather than pay the price 
For life, and thus upon its latest breath 
Proved to mankind love's triumph over death! 

Anne P. L. Field. 



"Loving and Loyal were they in their life — 
And in their death, they were not divided." 

David's lament over Saul and Jonathan. 

CANNOT leave thee, husband ; in thine arm 

Enfolded, I am safe from all alarm. 

If God hath willed that we should pass, this night, 

Through the dark waters to Eternal Light, 

O let us thank Him with our latest breath 

For welded life and undivided death. 

Solomon Sous Cohen. 

758 



< 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

PARTING 

DELOVED, you must go — ask not to stay, 

'"'^ You are a mother and your duties call ; 
And we, who have so long been all in all, 

Must put the human side of life away. 

For one brief moment let us stand and pray, 
Sealed in the thought that whatso'er befall 
We, who have known the freedom and the thrall, 

Of a great love, in death shall feel its sway — 

You, who must live, because of his dear need. 
You are the one to bear the harder part: — 

Nay, do not cling — 'tis time to say good-by. 
Think of me then but as a spirit freed — 
Flesh of my Flesh, and Heart of my own Heart, 

The love we knew has made me strong to die. 

TOGETHER 

I cannot leave you, ask me not to go. 

Love of my youth and all my older years; 
We, who have met together smiles or tears, 
Feeling that each did but make closer grow 
The union of our hearts — Ah say not so 

That Death shall find us separate. All my fears 
Are but to lose you. Life itself appears 
A trifling thing — But one great truth I know, 
When heart to heart has been so closely knit 
That Flesh has been one Flesh and Soul one Soul, 
Life is not life if they are rent apart — 
And death unsevered Is more exquisite. 
As we, who have known much, shall read the whole 
Of Life's great secret on each other's heart! 

CoRiNNE Roosevelt Robinson. 

Julia Richman 

/^OME all who serve the city, all who serve 

The glorious golden city of our dream, 
With true heart-service that can never swerve, 
How faint soe'er the strength or far the gleam — 

759 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Come sorrow proudly for our comrade passed 

Into the silence: one who served indeed 
In all things, even unto the least and last, 

Spending herself to meet the moment's need. 
Share memories of that strong, illumined face, 

Keen speech, and courage springing to the test, 
And all the fervor of the ancient race 

That finds its longed-for East in this young West. 
Be this the sum, the last w^ord best of all: 

She built her life into the city wall. 

Helen Gray Cone. 



Myer Davis 

r^AREWELL! the word is idle, not in vain 
•'■ He lived his righteous life, he must farewell 
Who lived for others' good. What man may tell 
The rich fruits of his toil, in sun and rain? 
What sheaves were garnered from the sacred grain 
Sown by his gracious lips, ere on their spell 
The lasting silence lingering slowly fell 
Down, like a wall between us? Yet again, 
Good night! good-bye! There is a time to weep 
For us, till the morn break and the shadows fly, 
Which long stretched out across the evening creep 
Hour after hour until the cock's first cry; 
O! holy herald of the day-springs leap 
Out of the dying dark, good night, good-bye. 

Isaac Lazarowich. 



Simon Wolf 

TTHE measure of a worthy man 

Is not the count of days or years- 
That life is noblest that doth plan 
Assuagement of a people's tears. 

760 



THE MODERN PERIOD 

His people's tears he did allay — 

O'er rugged steeps his hands were spread 

To help his brethren find a way 
From the dark labyrinth of dread. 

In the brave heart — the lofty mind — 

The dauntless spirit that outran 
The body's strength, the world shall find 

The measure of a worthy man 1 

Felix N. Gerson. 



To Simon Wolf 

r^EAR brother, brave and battle-scarred and bold, 
^-^ Whose kindling zeal my chastened spirit drew, 

And marshals now a myriad retinue 

To pave a path of safety for the Jew — 
In striving j^outhful and in service old, 

Alert, unresting, dominant and proud, 

Forgetting not the fealty you vowed 
In common with the Fathers, at the Mount, 

Where God revealed His Covenant in flame — 

Yours is a great, imperishable name! 

Who else an equal heritage can claim, 
Or render such illustrious account! 

And yet instead of coveting, we plead 

A portion of your spirit for our need. 

George Alexander Kohut. 



To Simon TVolf on His Eightieth Birthday 

V'^OU need no meed of praise In song or prose, 
No thing of bronze or marble to record 

How well you served the people and the Lord 
Long ere your head was hallowed by the snows 
Of four-score years. No respite nor repose 

Your right hand knew which flashed the spirit sword 

761 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Of battle for the Maccabean host 

Against the foe that dared with vandal steel 
Profane the shrine. Your Mattathias zeal 
Still sways us by its intimate appeal. 
Yours is no wanton pride, no frenzied boast, 
But just the picket's password at his post. 
Yours is the right to challenge and repel 
The enemies that trouble Israel. 

George Alexander Kohut. 



762 



VIII 
IN LIGHTER VEIN 



I 



IN LIGHTER VEIN 

The Stamp of Civilization 

JAPAN hath Western culture? So j-ou say. O vain 
sophistic thought! 
'Tis but the color of its texture that in her life is 

h'ghtly wrought. 
Civilization's higher forms belong to Western men 

alone. 
As for Japan ? Why e'en Anti-Semitism In her land 
Is quite unknown. 

Max Nordau. 
(Translated by J. F.) 



Confidence , 

SAID the State to the prelate your pay we will with- 
hold. 
Smiled the priest in reply, I scorn your pow'er and 

gold, 
You use your godless might with heavy cruel hand. 
But back your gifts I fling, nor care for your com- 
mand, 
Nor need our Church fear want; aye, money will be 

found. 
And free 'twill be given — since rich Jews do here 
abound. 

Max Nordau. 
(Translated by J. F.) 



Ein uralter Spruch 

IV/fOST prayers of my childhood days 

From memory have fled. 
No prayer at meals, at rising. 

Nor when I go to bed. 
But one I hold in high esteem. 

And locms in large proportion ; 

765 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

My stay it is in happy hours, 

And staff in my misfortune. 
And would you know this pray'r of mine, 

Mosaic interwoven ? 
It is the ancient formula 

Boree Peri Hagofen. Heinrich Heine. 

The Vision of His People 

P RE yet the morn in glory rose, 

•*^ While yet I tuned my harp's sweet string, 

A change came over me, alas! 

I can but wail — I cannot sing! 

For frightful dreams I saw by night, 

I saw my people — horrid sight! 

Leon Gordon. 



srae 



lite 



Juan Alfonso Baena, a converted Jew who flour- 
ished in the beginning of the 15th Century, made a 
curious collection of the poems of the Trobadores 
Espanoles including his own from which Rodrigues 
de Castro has given copious extracts. Don Santo, who 
flourished about the year 1360, made the following 
modest and not inelegant apology for taking his place 
among the poets of the land w^hich had given him 
birth: 

HTHE rose that twines a thorny sprig 

Will not the less perfume the earth ; 
Good wine that leaves a creeping twig 
Is not the worse for humble birth. 

The hawk may be of noble kind 

That from a soiled eyrie flew, 
And precepts are not the less refined 

Because they issue from a Jew. 

Santob de Carrion. 
766 



IN LIGHTER VEIN 

Between Two Stools 

NT ED will not keep the Jewish Sabbath, not he, 
■*• ^ Because the Church has otherwise ordained ; 
Nor yet the Christian for he does not see 
How alt'ring the day can be maintained ; 
Thus seeming for to doubt of keeping either 
He halts betwixt them both and so keeps neither. 

John Heath. 

The Rabbits Present 

A RABBI once, by all admired, 
^*" Received, of high esteem the sign 
From those his goodness thus inspired, 

A present of a cask of wine. 
But lo! when soon he came to draw, 

A miracle in mode as rapid 
But quite unlike what Cana saw. 

Had turned his wine to water vapid. 
The Rabbi never knew the cause, 

For miracles are things of mystery; 
Though some like this have had their laws 

Explained from facts of private history. 
His friends whom love did aptly teach, 

Wished all to share the gracious task, 
So planned to bring a bottle each. 

And pour their wine in one great cask. 
Now one by chance thought, "None will know. 

And with the wine of all my brothers 
One pint of water well may go ;" 

And so by chance thought all the others. 

Anonymous. 
An Epitaph 

LJERE lies Nachshon, man of great renown. 
Who won much glory in his native town ; 
'Twas hunger that killed him, and they let him die— 

767 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

They give him statues now, and gaze, and sigh — 
While Nachshon lived, he badly wanted bread, 
Now he is gone, he gets a stone instead. 

Ben Jacob. 

(Translated by Joseph Chotzner.) 

All Things To All Men 

A DAPT thyself to time and circumstance 
***• So wilt thou be untroubled every way. 
Amongst the wise make wise thy countenance 
And with the fool the role of dullard play; ,. 
Roar, if upon a lion thou shouldst chance; 
But if an ass thou meetest simply bray. 

Ben Joseph Palquera. 

(Translated by Harry W. Ettelson.) 

The Miser 

A MISER once dreamed he had given away 
"**■ Some bread to a beggar hed'd met in the day. 
He woke with a start and solemnly swore 
That as long as he lived he would slumber no more. 

Ben Zed. 
(Translated by Joseph Chotzner.) 

The Wife's Treasure 

(Midrash Yalkut, Chapter 17) 

A T Sidon lived a husband with his wife 
"**■ For ten long years, leading a tranquil life, 
With but a single grief — they had no child, 
And, to his barren lot unreconciled. 
The man upon it brooded. Then he bent 
His steps to Rabbi Simeon, with intent 
To be divorced ; and to the woman's tears 
He steeled his heart, and said : "Ten happy years 

768 



IN LIGHTER VEIN 

In peacefulness with thee, true heart, I spent; 
Staunch wert thou ever, nor a word to smart 
Escaped thy lips. And now, before we part, 
I will accord the treasure thou dost find 
In thy old home best suited to thy mind. 
Take it; whate'er it be, it shall be thine, 
To solace thee when thou no more art mine." 
Then said the Rabbi Simeon: "O ye pair! 
Before ye separate, a feast prepare. 
And pledge each other in the ruddy wine; 
Then the feast ended, woman, unto thine 
Own father's house do thou repair." 
That very night the supper board was spread, 
According to the law; one seated at the head, 
The other at the bottom. To the brim 
The woman filled the bowl and passed it to him, 
And then he pledged her, and she filled again, 
And he the goblet to his wife did drain 
Once more, with many wishes good and fair, 
But she the generous liquor did not spare. 
Until he fell into a drunken sleep. 
With head upon the table, heavy and deep. 
And thus concluded the farewell carouse. 
So then, she took him up with gentle care 
Upon her shoulder, and her husband bare. 
Nodding and drowsing, to her father's house, 
And laid him on the bed. 

At peep of day 
He started up and said: "Woman! I pray. 
Tell me^ where am I ?" 

She to him replied : 
"You promised me that nought should be denied 
To me of what I valued. I could find. 
In all thy house, thee only to my mind, 
And I have borne thee hither ; now I trow 
That thou art mine ; I will not let thee go. 
When I was thine, thou wouldst be quit of me; 
Now thou art mine, and I will treasure thee!" 

Sabine Baring-Gould. 

769 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Water Song 

"nTHE Feast's begun 
■*■ And the Wine is done, 
So my sad tears run 

Like streams of water^ streams of water. 

Three score and ten were Wine's bold braves, 
But a full score more were Water's knaves, 
And silent are our watery graves. 

For — whence tuneful note? 

When the minstrel's throat 
Tastes naught but Water, Water, Water! 

Around the board you see no smile; 

Untasted dishes rest in file, 

How can I touch these dainties while 

There stands my cup 

To the brim filled up 
With hated Water, Water, Water! 

Old Moses chid the Red Sea tide, 
And Egypt's dusky streams he dried, 
Till Pharaoh's fools for Water cried! 

But Moses dear, 

Why dost thou here 
Turn all to Water, hated Water? 

Can I myself to aught compare? 

To the frog who damp in watery lair, 

With dismal croakings fills the air. 

So frog and I 

Will sing or cry. 
The song of Water, the dirge of Water, 

The man whom water can delight 
For aught I care may turn Nazirite; 
Total abstention shall be his plight! 

And all his days 

To his lips shall raise 
Cups of Water, always Water! 

770 



IN LIGHTER VEIN 

The^ Feast is done, 
And Wine there's none; 
So my sad tears run 

Like streams of Water, streams of Water. 

Solomon Ibn Gabirol. 
(Translated by Israel Abrahams.) 



17ULL sweet of a truth is the sparkle of wine, 

But sorely we miss this blessing divine. 
And how can we waken a song or a laugh 
When we find that we simply have nothing to quaff 
But water, mere water? 

II 

The banquet has little contentment to bring, 
Bears little incitement to joke or to sing, 
When the potions we hoped to our future would 
Turn out in the end to be nothing at all, 
But water, yes water. 

Ill 

Good Moses of old caused the waters to flee. 
And led all his people dryshod o'er the sea; 
But Moses, our host, at the precedent frowns, 
And us, his poor guests, he unflinchingly drowns 
In water, cold water. 

IV 

We sit round the table like cold-blooded frogs. 
Who live out their lives in the watery bogs; 
Well, — if we have fallen on watery days. 
Let us, too, like them, croak a paean in praise 
Of water, dear water. 

771 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

V 

Long, long may our host here with main and with 

might 
By night and by day for his temperance fight, 
And may he and his line find it writ in the law 
That their business in life will be ever to draw 
Water, pure water. 

Solomon Ibn Gabirol. 
(Translated by Joseph Chotzner.) 



Wine Song 

r^EAR friend, beneath this spreading tree 
*-^ Where flitting shadows come and go, 
With myrtles crowned and roses we 
The joys of wine will freely know. 

Drink wisdom in with every draught. 
In wine shalt thou discover here 

Thy inner fires, thy mental craft, 
Increasing with each passing year. 

The thousand years of this our earth 
To God are but short lasting hours; 

A moment's death, a moment's birth, 
To God is one long year of ours. 

Ah ! would that I might live and laugh 
Through one God-year a thoui,and fold ; 

That I, forever young might quaf¥ 
Oceans of wine that e'er grows old. 

JuDAH Al-Harizi. . 
(Translated by I. A.) 



772 



IN LIGHTER VEIN 

The Ballad of Ephron, Prince of Topers 

/^OME listen to a merry song about a merry 

wight — 
The sovereign of all topers he, Ephron the Prince 

that hight; 
He strict forbade that any lad who aimed to live aright 
Should ever drink a drop — a drop of water! 

When with his court he sate at board, they always 

brought him first, 
A bowl of twTnty flagons for to slake his royal thirst; 
Then he'd fall to, and crunch and chew until you 
thought he'd burst — 
But never stop to drink a drop — of w^ater! 

Each morn Prince Ephron said his prayers before he 

broke his fast — 
"Good Lord!" he'd cry, "My mouth is dry, my tongue 

and lips stick fast; 
My throat's on fire, my heart's a pyre, my frame's a 

furnace vast. 
Oh, quench my flames with drink — but not with 

water 1 

"Make haste, dear friends, for love of God and my 

immortal soul. 
And fetch me good old white wine in my lordly silver 

bowl ; 
Oh, that's the thing to heart a king and make a sick 

man whole — 
But spoil it not, Oh, spoil it not, with water! 

"The harm that water does to folk, if that you doubt," 

says he, 
"There's quite a bit in Holy Writ, for everyone to see ; 
Examples few, I think will do, to make you say with 

me, 
That danger lurks in every drop of water. 

773 



1 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

"There's Noah's flood — that near made mud of all the 

world then known — 
The Nile — wherein by tyrants vile, our baby boys 

were thrown — 
And the Red Sea — where Pharaoh's host went down 

like any stone — 
Now what were flood, and Nile, and sea, but water! 

"There's Moses — meekest shepherd he, of an unruly 

flock- 
Yet lost the Promised Land because, in rage, he 

struck the rock; 
If blame to him, no shame to him, for sure 'twas quite 

a shock 
To hear the people grumble so — for water! 

"Look yt, how pride," he often cried, "makes for con- 
tracted view; 

Your glass-blowers now, from potters well might 
learn — and tinkers too 1 

This thing they call a wine-glass, pah ! 'Twould hold 
a drop of dew — 
But I'm not drinking dew — or any water!" 

Prince Ephron kept the sacred days of Israel's faith. 

At least. 
If fasts him irked, he never shirked a single holy 

feast ; 
And on the Days of Penitence, was none, in West or 

East, 
That, more than he, kept gullet-free — from water. 

Tebet would make him whine and fret; through 

Tamuz he would bawl ; 
And sore he'd moan and fast he'd groan, in Ab for 

Zion's fall. 
Till by the ninth too weak he'd grown, to try to fast 

at all ; 
Yet still he strict abstained — from drinking water. 

774 



IN LIGHTER VEIN 

Yom Kippurim his eyes went dim, with anguish of 

the soul, 
So by the Din it was no sin to call for plate and 

bowl ; 
But down his cheeks in salty streaks the tears of guile 

would roll, 
And once in every year, he tasted water. 

Amends, indeed, he made full meed. Each month he'd 

keep Purim 
The four cups he made forty — every night Leil 

Shimurim ; 
Succoth, Sh'buoth, Kiddush and Habdalah were good 

to him — 
Be sure his cup of blessing wasn't waiter! 

Whene'er it rained or threatened rain, at home would 

Ephron stay; 
"If clouds were wine-vats and their showers strong 

drink," he used to say, 
"I'd hie me out the storms to flout, and bask in them 

all day — 
"But what's the use of *ifs,' " he said, — "or water!" 

"If 'stead of brine, the waves were wine, of vintage 

fine," quoth he, 
"I'd wish to be a Jonah's fish a' swimming in the sea; 
None other Eden would I ask to all eternity — 
But for our sins God made the sea of water! 

"For had He sent a flood of wine — in Noah's time, 

you know, 
Our patriarch had built no ark, to be shut in, below; 
In such a tide, Oh, none had died — but all cut up 

Dido— 
And that's why rivers, rains and seas are water!" 



* 



775 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Prince Ephron (peace upon his soul!) lies sleeping in 

the dust 
Until that day when, sages say, the sinful and the just 
Shall rise to meet their due reward. Then, let us 

humbly trust. 
Nor he, nor we, shall crave in vain for water! 

Immanuel Ben Solomon of Rome. 
(Translated by Solomon Solis Cohen.) 



776 



INDEXES 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 



A broad gold band engraven, 36. 

A curious fancy seized on Moses' soul, 71. 

A curious title held in high repute, 614. 

A dawning sun breaks through the sable cloud, 471. ^ 

A deep-bassed, thunder-rolling psalm, 17. 

A face more vivid than he dreamed who drew, 336. 

A glorious heritage is mine, 547. 

A gorgeous structure, rich with fretted gold, 112. 

A hospital for the poor and weary Jew, 712. 

A lily lies broken and bare on a highway, 469. 

A man stood stained! France was one Alp of hate, 655. 

A miser once dreamed he had given away, 768. 

A new shrine stands in beauty reared, 629. 

A Rabbi once, by all admired, 767. 

A Rabbi's child and Puritan's once met, 91. 

A rare, sweet daughter of a wondrous race, 742. 

A rugged stone, 33. 

A single light is kindled and it glows, 323. 

A star of guidance o'er Life's troubled ocean, 638. 

A tract of land swept by the salt seafoam, 651. 

A wail comes o'er the swelling seas, 666. 

Above the grief of Israel soars a voice, 752. 

Absalom! Absalom, 106. 

According to His righteous will, 387. 

Across the Eastern sky has glowed, 675. 

Across the land their long lines pass, 590. 

Across the life-path of our destiny, 285. 

Adapt thyself to time and circumstances, 768. 

Adown the vista of the long ago, 691. 

Afar the reaches of our land one day, 754. 

Ah, I could worship thee, 8. 

Ah! ingrate people whom I sought to please, 531. 

Ah, more and more at evening, 711. 

All the world shall come to serve Thee, 453. 

Al-Muzawwir! the "Fashioner!" say thus, 18. 

All living souls shall bless Thy name, 409. 

779 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Although tormented and ill-treated, 219. 

Amid the murm'ring din and seething strife, 735. 

An age-worn wanderer, pale with thought and tears, 7. 

Ancient pages of the Talmud, 165. 

And all is lost! Thy valiant sons are dead, 377. 

And Edward's England spat us out — a band, 566, 

And Rachel lies in Ephrath's land, 39. 

And so we twain must part! Oh linger yet, 240. 

And thou art gone, Grace Aguilar, 644. 

And who is He that sculptured in huge stone, 77. 

Another Moses of our race, 736. 

Antigonus of Socho said, 170. 

Are these the ancient holy hills, 515. 

Arise and sing, thou deathless melody, 389. 

Arise! Sons of Israel, arise, 139. 

Art thou not, Zion, fain, 371. 

As down the age he shambles, gaunt and gray, 581. 

As side by side they traveled through the years, 758. 

As to an ancient temple, i. 

Ask, it is well, O thou consumed of fire, 430. 

At early morn, Thee will I seek, 404. 

At midnight, so the rabbis tell, 102. 

At morn I ask Thee, lend Thy shelt'ring aid, 406. 

At Sidon livv;d a husband with his wife, 768. 

At the dawn, I seek Thee, 405. 

Awake, oh Israel! and hear, 492. 

Awake to lyric rapture once again, 650. 

Away from our land, 479. 



Back, my soul, into thy nest, 237. 

Be thou a Jew! Let oppressors scoff, 596. 

Bearded old patriarchs, flippant young men, 573. 

Beautiful height! O joy! the whole world's gladness, 464. 

Before the glorious orbs of light, 392. 

"Behold, as I sit here, alone and forlorn," 493. 

Behold thou art all fair, my love, 116. 

Before Thy heavenly word revealed the wonders of Thy 

will, 393. 
Behold, O Lord, Thy faithful people, 218. 
Belov'd of all to whom the muse is dear, 744. 
Beloved, you must go — ask not to stay, 759. 
Belshazzar is king! Belshazzar is Lord, 141. 
Ben Levi sat with his books alone, 195. 
Beneath the full-eyed Syrian moon, 24, 
Bezalel, filled with wisdom to design, 74. 
Bless'd art Thou, O Lord of all, 407. 
Blessed Bible! how I love it, 4. 
Blue are the skies in the land of our fathers, 498. 

780 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 

Bow of beauty, arching o'er us, tinted with unearthly dyes, 

22. 

Bright pledge of peace and sunshine! the surety, 22. 
"Bring forth the Jew!" Ben Hassim said, "The catiff of 

his creed," 226. 
Brothers, my brothers — you that are free, 671. 
But the waves of the fury of nations, 499. 
But who shall see the glorious day, 482. 
By Babel's streams, thy children wept, 136. 
By Babel's streams we sat, we wept, 137. 
By Nebo's lonely mountain, 81. 
By whom was David taught, 97. 

Captive of sorrow on a foreign shore, 229. 

Cause us, our Father, to He down in peace, 408. 

Cease, Christian, cease the word of scorn, 555. 

Chosen of old, the guardians of the Law, 596. 

Closed are the tear-gates of Paradise now, 634. 

Come all who serve the city, all who serve, 759. 

Come listen to a merry song about a merry wight, 773. 

Come, my beloved, to meet the Bride, 266. 

Come not, oh Lord, In the dread robe of splendor, 124. 

Come, O Sabbath day, and bring, 272. 

Come, quaff the brimming festal glass, 345. 

Come tell us the story again, 346. 

"Could a man 'scape the rod," 175. 

Couldst thou have lived to share with us this hour, 743. 

Creator, Author of all things, 426. 

Cruel foes with hate inflamed, 216, 

Crumbling, age-worn, In Rome the eternal, 517. 

Daughter of Zion! Awake from thy sadness, 482. 
Daughters of Zion, from the dust, 485. 
Dear bard and prophet, that thy rest Is deep, 738. 
Dear brother, brave and battle-scarred and bold, 761. 
Dear friend, beneath this spreading tree, 772. 
Deep be thy sleep, brave Prophet — Priest of God, 747. 
Descend, descend, O Sabbath Princess, 270. 
Disraeli dead! The trappings of late days, 728. 
Do you wonder why such longing, loi. 
Down by the shining sea, 366. 

Down from the mist-clad mountain Moses came, 69. 
Down-trodden 'neath the Syrian heel, 327. 
D'ye see that shop at the corner, with the three balls over 
the door, 603. 

Easy the cry while vengeance now Is wrought, 567. 
Ere space exists, or earth or sky, 438. 

781 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Ere yet the morn in glory rose, 766. 

Erect he stands, in fervent prayer, 403. 

Eternal Lord, His praise 1 sing, 395. 

Extol we now the living God, 399. 

Extolled be the living God and lauded be His name, 398. 

Exult, my soul, in consciousness proud, 413. 



Farewell, O Prince, farewell, O sorely tried, 507. 

Farewell? Oh, no! It may not be, 89. 

Farewell! the word is idle, not in vain, 760. 

Father of Light and Life and Power, 630. 

Father of Mercies, and all Human Love, 678. 

Fee, faw, fum! bubble and squeak, 610. 

Fire from high, holy heaven down-drawn, 742. 

Fools who kill for the lust of blood, fiends of the slaughter 

pen, 673. 
For ages imprisoned in shadow, 153. 
For garnered fields and meadows cropped, 299. 
For God, the living God, my soul's athirst, 422. 
For I have hither come, O ye dead bones, 661. 
For, if we be not of the lost Ten Tribes, 533. 
For that day, that day of bliss entrancing, 65. 
For the first time a lovely scene, 20. 
Forget Thee, oh my God! and can this be, 125. 
France has no dungeons in her island tomb, 656. 
Friday night! come draw the curtain, 268. 
From Egypt once, 'mid storm and flame, 354. 
From far-off ages hath this people sprung, 543. 
From far Siberia's frozen plains, 662. 
From His garden bed our Lord, 226. 
From mem'ry's lofty vantage ground, 627. 
From old to new, with broadening sweep, 285. 
From Shushan's royal palace came the edict dread and 

dark, 340. 
From Sinai's top the lightnings flashed, 67. 
From the hall of our fathers in anguish we fled, 130. 
From the hills of the West, as the sun's setting beam, 133. 
From the last hill that looks on the once holy dome, 157. 
From town and village to a wood, stript bare, 659. 
Full oft has the ark been opened, 303. 
Full sweet of a truth is the sparkle of wine, 771. 



Genius of Raphael ! if thy wings, 632. 

Gifts, as romantic as the cruse of oil, 618. 

Glows once more in the Russian sky, the blood-red dawn of 

a day of hate, 663. 
Go forth among this homeless race, 535. 

782 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 

Go forth, O people, 159. 

Go forth! thou man of force, 156. 

Go where a foot hath never trod, 50. 

Go, with the wand'rer's staff in hand, 503. 

God got me ere His works began, 121. 

God healed him while he slept, 735. 

God made the world with rhythm and rime, 622. 

God of the World, eternity's sole Lord, 274. 

God of thunder! from whose cloudy seat, 134. 

God said: "I will make a poet," 648, 

God, that heaven's seven climates hath spread forth, 76. 

God, whom shall I compare to Thee, 424. 

Gone another year, 435. 

Gone is thine hour of night, 132. 

Good Rabbi Nathan had rejoiced to spend, 194. 

"Good sir, thou didst me order," 517. 

Groups of radiant angels soaring, 723. 

Grow old along with me, 615. 



Hail to the brightness of Zion's glad morning, 483. 

Happy he who saw of old, 445. 

Hard by the walls of Plevna, not fifty yards away, 689. 

Hast thou heard the voice of my Belov'd, 117. 

Have you read in the Talmud of old, 207. 

He came into the Camp of Creed, 751. 

He sang of God, the mighty source, 98. 

He set us free, 534. 

He stood on Nebo's lofty crest, 77. 

He stopped at last, 51. 

Hear, O Israel, Jehovah, the Lord our God is one, 563. 

Her hair is winged with summer nights, 636, 

Here lies Nachshon, man of great renown, 767. 

Hidden in the ancient Talmud, 200. 

Hillel, the gentle, the beloved sage, 167. 

His dark face kindled in the East, 529. 

His was another race than mine, 725. 

Hold thou thy friend's honor dear as is thine own, 209. 

Hope for the salvation of the Lord, 420. 

Hope! Not distant is the Springtime, 625. 

How canst thou face thy Maker, how canst thou ever dare, 

677. 
How cloudy is the sky, 545. 

How great, O Israel, have thy sufferings been, 564. 
How great thy Thoughts, how Glorious thy Designs, 12. 
How long, O Lord! how long, 488. 
How long, O Lord, shall sobs and sighs, 664. 
How long wilt thou in childhood's slumber lie, 237. 
How may we know you, year of all, 282. 

783 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

How shall I stand before Thee, Lord, and I am bowed with 

shame, 435. 
How shall we spend, O Lord, 623. 

How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves, 651. 
How vain and dull this common world must seem, 749. 
Hundreds of years agone, my brothers, 585. 
Hush'd was the evening hymn, 85. 
Hushed are the sounds of party-strife, 730. 

I abide, 538. 

I am come with the dawn on the swift wings of light, 473. 

I am the suppliant for my people here, 451. 

I asked my Muse had she any objection, 361. 

I asked the wind, "Where hast thou been," 174. 

I bless Thee, Father, for the grace, 273. 

I cannot find Thee! still on restless pinion, 17. 

I cannot leave thee, husband; in thine arm, 758. 

I dreamt I saw an angel in the sky, 616. 

I had a mighty vision from the skies, 543. 

I hear His voice in song of wren, 419. 

I kindled my eight little candles, 325, 

I know not what this w^orld would be, 70. 

I love my God, but with no love of mine, 16. 

I marked in the midst of the glittering throng, 572. 

I remember in my childhood, 358. 

I saw a maiden sweet and fair, 639. 

I saw in rift of cloud a beaming light, 519. 

I saw — 'twas in a dream, the other night, 724. 

I stand in the dark; I beat on the floor, 38. 

I stood, to-day, in a temple, 284, 

I thirst for God, to Him my soul aspires, 421. 

I will not have you think me less, 246. 

I will sing a song of heroes, 25. 

I will sing high-hearted Moses, 46. 

If I had known, dear Master, when of late, 732. 

If I have failed, my God, to see, 293. 

"If, Jerusalem, I ever," 231. 

If one should say, "Thou art a Jew," 559. 

If Patriarchal days alone were thine, 721. 

If thou art merry, here are airs, 10. 

If thought ever reach to Heaven, 617. 

I'm but a child, and childish toys, 286. 

Impassioned hours, when Hebrew was the key, 236. 

Imperial Persia bowed to his wise sway, 142. 

In all great Shushan's palaces was there, 333. 

In Arabia's book of fable, 253. 

In Babylon they sat and wept, 519. 

In doubt, in weariness, in woe, 59. 

In dying, will the parting breath, 126. 

784 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 



In Hester Street, hard by a telegraph post, 575. 

In his chamber sat the Rabbi, 118. 

In Judah, in the days of story, 313. 

In Judah's halls the harp is hushed, 42. 

In lonely hours of thought I long, 287. 

In Paris all look'd hot and like to fade, 640. 

In quaint old Talmud's pages, 267. 

In schools of wisdom all the day was spent, 189. 

In stern debate, all through the night they strove, 169. 

In the dark depths of those great soulful eyes, 640. 

In the height and depth of His burning, 454. 

In the land of Brittany, and long ago, 607. 

In the sadness of your eyes, 598. 

In the weary night they come to me, 668. 

In the wondrous breastplate golden, 72. 

Into the tomb of ages past, 283. 

Is it so far from thee, 106. 

Is life worth living? To the querulous cry, 723. 

Israel in fetters still! The prophet's wand, 360. 

It was not granted to her she should lead, 745. 

Japan hath Western culture? So you say. O vain sophistic 

thought, 765. 
Jerusalem! Jerusalem, 129. 
Jerusalem! Jerusalem, 490. 
Jerusalem, my boast and pride, 467. 
Jerusalem! on thy ruin'd walls, 131. 
Jerus'lem! Jerus'lem! thy glories have fled, 465. 
Jew and Christian, side by side, 706. 
Judge of the earth, who wilt arraign, 442. 

Kalich, thou of the dark and brooding face, 643. 
Kindle the taper like the steadfast star, 319. 
King Solomon, before his palace gate, 120. 

Lamp of my feet, whereby we trace, i. 

Land of the cedar and palm, 501. 

Leave me alone in sorrow! Ask me not, 90. 

Leave not a veil before my eyes, 418. 

Lechayim, my brethren, Lechayim, I say, 301. 

Let candles shed your light, 329. 

Let no lament break forth but rather, 746. 

Let the voice of the mourner be heard on the mountain, 95. 

Let those who will hang rapturously o'er, ii. 

Let us build to the Lord of the earth in each place, 296- 

I-ift up thine head, oh Israel, gird thine armor on anew, 530. 

Like a tender, loving maiden, 349, 

Like the crash of the thunder, 460. 



785 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Little cruet in the Temple, 318. 

Little man of sorrows, whither would you wander, 473. 

Lo! above the mournful chanting, 288. 

Lo! as the potter mouldeth plastic clay, 444. 

Lo! I am Death! With aim as sure as steady, 244. 

Lo! I recall the siege which fell on me, 369. 

Lo, this is the law that I gave you, 362. 

Lone in the wilderness, her child and she, 31. 

Lord, do Thou guide me on my pilgrim way, 427. 

Lord, I remember, and am sore amazed, 456. 

Lord of the world. He reigned alone, 390. 

Lord of the world, we seek Thy face, 416. 

Lord over all! whose power the sceptre swayed, 390. 

Lord, the true that follow Thee, 321. 

Lord! who art merciful as well as just, 417. 

Lovely grapes and apples, 298. 

Maid of Persia, Myrtle named, 335. 

Make friends with him! He is of royal line, 344. 

May has come from out the showers, 577. 

May He who sets the holy and profane, 276. 

Methought I saw the heavy eyelids rise, 701. 

Methought on two Jews' meeting I did chance, 557. 

'Mid the light spray their snorting camels stood, 56. 

Mighty, praised beyond compare, 330. 

Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau, 534. 

Most prayers of my childhood days, 765. 

Mother England, Mother England, 'mid the thousands, 567. 

Mourn, Mizraim, mourn! The weltering wave, 57. 

Must the sea plead in vain that the river, 502. 

My dark-browed daughter of the sun, 635. 

My darling, your grace, 639. 

My God, I know that those who plead, 434. 

My harp is on the willow-tree, 719. 

My heart is in the East, tho' in the West I live, 240. 

My Love ! hast Thou forgotten, 405. 

My people, my people! Arise, O bleeding East, 497. 

My Rabbi was Nature — she set me to learn, 699. 

My soul surcharged with grief now loud complains, 249. 

My sweet gazelle! From thy bewitching eyes, 248. 

My times are in Thy hand, no. 

Naught is there in life worth living, 619. 

Ned will not keep the Jewish Sabbath, not he, 767. 

Night has on the earth descended, 718. 

No coward soul is mine, 15. 

No dirge or solemn bell, 508. 

No hate can stifle our religion's birth, 599. 

No longer the children of Zion need weep, 486. 

786 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 

No tombstone saw tbev there, 22. 

Nobody cares, for he's only a Jew, 599. 

Nor life nor denth had any peace for thee, 648. 

Not by power, 625. 

Not for our sake, O Lord, 549. 

Not for us the Sabbath of the quiet streets, 270. 

Not 'mid the clash of arms he won, 724. 

Now die away, my tuneful song, 213. 

Now dimly thro' our tears we see his Face, 727. 

Now lette us shede the brinie teare, 93. 

"Now say, my queen," the monarch cries, 343. 

Now shall the praises of the Lord be sung, 63. 

Now the stars are lit in heaven, 73. 

O Book of books, and friend of friends alone, 7. 

O city of the world, with sacred splendor blest, 481. 

O fairest of creation, last and best. 20. 

O fugitives from black Oppression's bread, 160. 

O God of Israel, Lord on high, 548. 

O glory of an elder age, 568. 

O golden lights, shine out anew, 321. 

O heart, who art a fable, new and true, 167. 

O Israel! in the morn's returning light, 621. 

O Israel, thy glory gleamed, 536. 

O Israel! wanderer through the weary years, 541. 

O Israel's God-anointed warrior king, loi. 

O little Land of lapping seas, 474. 

O long the way and short the day, 575. 

O Lord, I call on Thee when sore dismayed, 425. 

O Lord, my God, in Thee I put my trust, 109. 

O Lord of Hosts, Thou Only One, 293. 

O Lord, Thou know'st my inmost hope and thought, 249. 

O Lord, Thy righteous wrath and vengeance pour, 660. 

O man of my own people, I alone, 557. 

O Muscovite, blind is your wrath, with, 660. 

O people long oppressed and stricken sore, 472. 

O rain, depart with blessings, 428. 

O Son of man, by lying tongues adored, 659. 

O Soul, with storms beset, 242. 

O! speed'ly build Thy temple shrine, 355. 

O Star of Hope! O Blessed Star, 496. 

O sweet anemones on Sharon's plain, 500. 

O the legendary light, 326. 

O Thou eternal One! whose presence bright, 15. 

O Thou, that art the Trust, the Strength, 428. 

O Thou, the One supreme o'er all, 13. 

O Thou, sweet friend, would I might soothe thy fear, 553. 

O tribe of ancestry, be dumb, thy parchment roll review, 483. 

O wherefore was my birth from heaven foretold, 88. 

787 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

O while within a Jewish breast, 459. 

O would that I might be, 436. 

O youngest daughter of thy ancient race, 634. 

O Zion ! of thine exiles' peace take thought, 374. 

"Observe ye" and "remember" still, 265. 

O'er lordly Shushan's terrac'd walls, 338. 

Of all the thoughts of God that are, 109. 

Of all Thy gifts the best, 415. 

Of Israel's sweetest singer now I sing, 100. 

Of what avail in low estate to weep, 744. 

Oh! city of world, most chastely fair, 238. 

Oh, dark is the spirit that loves not the land, 245. 

Oh! harp of Judah! wake again, 619. 

Oh! I love to roam in fancy o'er the hills where Zion stood, 

713- . 
Oh, Mariamne, now for thee, 145. 
Oh, pilgrim, halting on the rock-strewn sod, 32. 
Oh, that death should lay thee low, 745. 
Oh, that the golden lyre divine, 682. 
Oh, thou Eternal and Omnipotent, 291. 
Oh! weep for those that wept by Babel's stream, 135. 
"Oh, weep not for the dead." Alas! how weak, 733. 
"Oh, World-God, give me Wealth!" the Egyptian cried, 717. 
Oh, Zion! if I cease for thee, 138. 
Old and gray, his shoulders bent, 685. 
Old Israel's readers of the stars, 12. 

"Old Rabbi, what tales dost thou pour in mine ear," 198. 
On evening's bosom snowy cloudlets wave, 253. 
On hill and glade, the flowers fade, 698. 
On lovely dwellings fall the fervid rays, 466. 
On the brow of Gilboa is war's bloody stain, 95. 
On the mountain's top appearing, 493. 
On the sand and sea-weed lying, 58. 
On,' warriors and chiefs! every step we have trod, 317. 
Once in my secluded chamber, 704. 
Once more a singing soul's most airy vessel, 741. 
Once th' omnipotent Maker of world without end, 201. 
Once, through a night of darkness and of shadow, 645. 
One more gravestone — one more heart, 700. 
Our Rock with loving care, 411. 
Our sins are many, and we sigh, 443. 
Out of dense darkness, stress of ages, 306. 
Out of the depths of despair, 702. 
Outworn by studious toil and age, 186. 

Patient in sorrow, and never repining, 560, 

Pause, O ye winds of Heaven, pause in your winged flight, 

693- 
Peace and remembrance! All the great, 753. 

788 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 

Peace! no tear for him who sleepeth near, 507. 
Pride and humiliation hand in hand, 538. 
Prosaic miles of streets stretch all round, 353. 

Queen Esther — so the Scriptures say, 337. 

Rabbi Ben Hissar rode one day, 177. 

Rabbi Ben Josef, old and blind, 179. 

Rabbi Ben Shalom's wisdom none but his scholars know, 180. 

Rabbi Ben Zadok, o'er the sacred law, 171. 

Rabbi Jehosha used to say, 172. 

Reigned the universe's Master, ere were earthly things 

begun, 391. 
Ring in the glorious festal-tide, 352. 
Rude are the tabernacles now, 415. 

Sad eyes and dark she bends upon the throng, 637. 

Said Rabbi Simon to his son, 205. 

Said the child of the bright yellow hair, 6oi. 

Said the State to the prelate your pay we will withhold, 765. 

Say not that we are cut off by Thee, Guardian of Israel's 

race, 626. 
See how the people of Israel come trooping, 488 
Seek not what I am to know, 522. 
Serene, translucent as yon Maytime star, 618. 
Servants of time, lo! these be slaves of slaves, 239. 
Set high the light where all may see, 328. 
Shall I sorrow, oh desolate city, 370. 
Shamed and degraded you call them — they, 708. 
She gladly shared his cup of death. She sought, 757. 
She stands among the nations of the earth, 531. 
She stood breast-high amid the corn, 88. 
She's an enchanting little Israelite, 636. 
"Shema Yisrael," is the lesson we learn, 595. 
Shine, Sabbath Lamp, oh shine with tender ray, 258. 
Shines the moon, the stars are glowing, 700. 
Silent and wise and changeless, 600. 
Silver candlesticks that beam, 260. 
"Simchas-Torah ! skip and hop, 300. 
Since our country, our God — oh, my sire, 86. 
Since Terah's son from Chaldea went, 587. 
Since we be standing even yet, to be, 449. 
Sing to Jehovah, who gloriously triumphs, 62. 
Sing unto God a new song, sing no more, 503. 
So, Lord, teach us to number our days, 361. 
So once more the ancient story lifts its voice undulled by 

age, 350. 
So — you have "recognized" the Jew, 601. 

789 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Soldier of Justice — fighting with her sword, 654. 

Son of a mystic race, he came, 649. 

Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea, 61. 

Stand! as God saw thee of old time, 558. 

Statue! whose giant limbs, 84. 

Such men are rare — they tow'r above mankind, 505. 

Sweet blue-eyed Charity, devout and calm, 722. 

Sweet hymns and songs will I indite, 386. 

Sweet hymns I chant, and weave melodious songs, 384. 

Sweet hymns shall be my chant and woven songs, 381. 

Sweet Jewish maid, crown'd with a monarch's love, 335. 

Sweet Moab gleaner on old Israel's plain, 91. 

Sweet Sabbath-Bride, the Hebrew's theme of praise, 263. 

Swift as birds of prey, they darted, 215. 

Swinging low by a garden wall, 378. 

"Take heed; the stairs are worn and damp," 681. 

Talk not of Christian France, lest mantling shame, 653. 

The ancient of cities! — the lady of nations, 475. 

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 127. 

The bands of sleep fall on mine eyes, 4Q6. 

"The boneless tongue, so small and weak," 206. 

The breath of ev'ry living thing, 408. 

The Burden of Dumah. Silence. What of the night, 124. 

The Cerberus breakers that brawl and that cry, 402. 

The chosen ones of Israel are scatter'd far and wide, 552. 

The Doctors in the Talmud say, 209, 

The dreamers are not dead in Israel, 505. 

The everlasting Lord who reigned, 394. 

The Feast's begun, 770. 

The flaming sunset bathed the distant hills, 54. 

The God of Israel sate on high, 657. 

The great white fast! the day that solemnly, 294. 

The hand of Time moves o'er the dial, 329. 

The harp of Zion sleepeth, 484. 

The High Priest at the altar lingering stood, 155. 

The hills and the valleys are flooded with moonlight, 703. 

The Jew of whom I spake is old, — so old, 537. 

The Jews, my brothers, will they understand me, 696. 

The King was on his throne, 143. 

The last lone Sabbath candle sheds, 280. 

The lifting of mine hands accept of me, 447. 

The living God, O magnify and bless, 397. 

The living God we praise, exalt, adore, 401. 

The Lord hath set me o'er the kings of earth, 129. 

The Lord my Shepherd is, no want I know, iii. 

The majesty of sunset in the west, 269. 

The measure of a worthy man, 760. 

The moon is up, the stars shine bright, 163. 

790 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 

The muse, that first lent grace to gratitude, 749. 

The pall was settled. He who slept beneath, 104. 

The plume-like swaying of the auburn corn, 90. 

The priest bent angry gaze upon the Jew, 584. 

The Rabbi Judah, so the scribes relate, 173. 

The Rabbi Levi let his thoughts be cast, 185. 

The Rabbi Meir, 190. 

I'he Rabbi Nathan, twoscore years and ten, 181. 

The rabbi viewed on Zion's hill, 168. 

The rose is hid by prickly thorn, 721. 

The rose that twines a thorny sprig, 766. 

The Sabbath is here, and the heavens are beaming, 271. 

The scene of conflict was a level plain, 594. 

The shadows have taken the place of the sun, 279. 

The shadows of an Eastern day, 28. 

The shore once won, who counts the waves, 657. 

The Spirit breathes upon the word, 3. 

The starry firmament on high, 5. 

The story that Herzl told was true, 496. 

The sullen ice has crept from sunny fields, 355. 

The summer glories fade in autumn mists, 708. 

The sun and moon unchanging do obey, 238. 

The sun had set upon Jerusalem, 176. 

The sun of the morning looked forth from his throne, 92. 

The sun shone bright upon a kingly throne, 310. 

The wild gazelle on Judah's hills, 139. 

The world was at his feet, 44. 

Thee I will seek, to Thee unveil my breast, 439. 

There is a lamp whose steady light, 9. 

There is a legend (and 'tis quaintly sweet), 204. 

There is a legend full of joy and pain, 146. 

There is a lonely mountain-top, 86. 

There is a mystic tie that joins, 546. 

There is an old and stately hall, 221. 

There is an eye that never sleeps, 15. 

There is no unbelief, 631. 

There is one book, far dearer than the rest, 734. 

There is one only God, 395. 

There stood upon Moriah's mount, 184. 

There's a memory that sweetens, 410. 

They call us Jews. Those men whose family tree, 553. 

They drive me out of my country, 593. 

They say, "The man is false, and falls away,". 128. 

They seized our holy congregation, 219. 

They tell me, "Give thy nation up," 716. 

They tell me my spirit's departed, 539. 

They who have governed with a self-control, 172. 

Thine is the heritage of ancient birth, 721. 

Thine was a poet's soul ; thine was a heart, 747. 

791 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

This book — this holy book, on every line, i. 

This day is for Israel light and rejoicing, 275. 

This day sublime elect, my God, to Thee, 292. 

This holy book I'd rather own, 11. 

This picture does the story express, 48, 

This was the shepherd boy who slung the stone, 108. 

Thou art a Jew, and all is said, 561. 

Thou art of all created things, 14. 

Thou beautiful Sabbath, thou sanctified day, 261. 

Thou art but One! O God to Whom we bow, 665. 

Thou canst accomplish all things, Lord of might, 126. 

Thou canst have no other God but mine, 715. 

Thou fairest one of Judah's daughters, 637. 

Thou glory of a thousand kings, 144. 

Thou God, the only God, 123. 

Though life may fade, love never dies, 727. 

Thou lookest backward reverently. 'Tis well, 707. 

Thou poor wan phantom of a vanished joy, 348. 

Thou knowest my tongue, O God, 241. 

Thou sacred flame, so mellow and subdued, 154. 

Thou, to whom my name bears witness, 215. 

Thou sweet Sabbath of rest! Priceless gift from above, 278. 

Though bare of bloom the broad-leafed fig, 122. 

Though our harps hang on the willows, 486. 

Three thousand miles of Atlantic seas and a throb that cuts 

the top, 591. 
Thrice happy nation! Favorite of heaven, 533. 
Thrones that stood and realms that flourished, 40. 
Thy beauty, Israel, is gone, 96. 

Thy faithful sons, whom Thou in love hast owned, 214. 
Thy praise, O Lord, will I proclaim, 296. 
Thy spirit. Sage, is ever on the wing, 736. 
Thy thoughts are here, my God, 5. 
'Tis night, dark night! a solemn stillness reigns, 52. 
'Tis sorrow, O King! of the heart, 140. 
'Tis to the East the Hebrew bends, 487. 
'Tis written in the chapter of "the Cave," 74. 
To each his country dearer far, 720. 
To Israel the charge belongs, 410. 
To Israel this day is joy ever bless'd, 414. 
To the home of the rabbi a Lord in his splendor, 617. 
To thee o'er whose fresh-closed tomb, 732. 
To Thee we give ourselves to-day, 293. 
Trembling old men are stamm'ring, 684. 
"Truth is an idol," spake the Christian sage, 650. 
Turn, O Israel, turn and live, 294. 
'Twas the love that lightened service, 34. 
Twilight is here, soft breezes bow the grass, 669. 
Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, 20. 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 

Two stars are shining in the skies, 278. 

Under no skies but ours, her grave be made, 738. 

Under shining, under shadow, 523. 

Under the Orient skies of sapphire where the sun is all 

aglow, 540. 
Upon a stone in olden time, 33. 
Unto thy Rock, O my soul, uplift thy gaze, 420. 
Up above me star and star, 277. 

Victor of God! O thou whose lamp of Fame, 305. 

Wake, Israel, wake! recall to-day, 309. 

Warriors and chiefs! should the shaft or the sword, 92. 

Was it thus, stricken remnant, the glory of God, 627. 

We are coming, coming, coming. Fling our banners to the 

breeze, 495. 
We climbed the hill where from Samaria's crown, 158. 
We have toiled, O Lord, with our blood and our might, 528. 
We meet to-day to call upon thy name, 746. 
We own no kingdom and we flaunt no king, 623. 
We sat down and wept by the waters, 137. 
We sat us down by Babel's streams, 132. 
We welcome thee joyfully, glorious night, 332. 
We were at school together, 604. 
We wonder at, we praise your life, 757. 
Weep, Israel! your tardy meed outpour, 513. 
Weep, weep for him, the man of God, 80. 
We've read in legends of the books of old, 151. 
What! do I hear the nation's boast, 624. 
What offerings can we bring Thee, Lord, 297. 
What praise is on our lips, what cheer, 364. 
What! still reject the fated race, 542. 
What this "the age of toleration"? — Yet, 715. 
What treasure greater than a friend, 250. 
What's the meaning of the rainstorm, 688. 
When all within is dark, 241. 
When ancient nations bowed the knee, 628. 
When as a wall the sea, 356. 
When by Jabbok the patriarch waited, 36. 
When by the hand of God man was created, 206. 
When he, who, from the scourge of wrong, 81. 
When I think of thee, O Zion, 491. 
When is the Jew in Paradise, 272. 
When Israel dwelt in Egypt's land, 67. 
When Israel from proud Egj'pt's yoke, 55. 
When Israel in the wilderness, 365. 
When Israel marched from Egypt's land, 463. 

793 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

When Israel, of the Lord beloved, 631. 
When Israel's son in Egypt groaned, 676. 
When Memnon's sculptured form the god of day, 642. 
When on thy bed of pain thou layest low, 737. 
When ransomed Israel saw the returning sea, 358. 
When Solomon, great King of Israel, 149. 
When Solomon was reigning in his glory, 114. 
When Sorrow, blinded with her tears, 418. 
When strife is rampant in the world, 663. 
When the fisher-folk of the Netherlaad coast, 748. 
When the great leader's task was done, 79. 
When the night her vision is weaving, 103. 
When the pride of the rose is the image of sorrow, 280. 
When thou canst wash the Ethiopian white, 694. 
When you tell of Israel's heroes, those who lived, in days 
of old, 307. 

When Zion's dire captivity, 504. 

Whence, but from Heaven, could men unskill'd in arts, 9. 

Whence comes this motley, dark-e\ed, swarthy crowd, 550. 

Where are the cities of the plain, 30. 

Where are you going, soldiers, 462. 

"Where is now Elijah's God," 226. 

Where is the modern Judah Maccabee, 709. 

Where wait the soldiers of the Lord, 481. 

Wherefore weep our brethren yonder, 513. 

Wheresoe'er I turn mine eyes, 420. 

Whether of Fate, or by the hand of man, 305. 

While the tribes of the earth yet in the darkness groped, 551. 

W^ho called thee to such holy high estate, 506. 

Who is this man that walketh in the field, 31. 

Who shall narrate Thy wonders wrought of old, 381. 

Who tamed your lawless Tartar blood, 672. 

Why look ye to the dead? Awake, 'jc,^. 

Why should I wander sadly, 247. 

"Why so sad, thou princely child," 220. 

Why, trembling and sad, dost thou stand there and mourn, 

489. 
Wide open, ye doors, and raise up high, O gate, 471, 
Wing thee, my song, and In majestic flight, 570. 
With all my heart. In truth, and passion strong, 239. 
"With bated breath and whispering humbleness," 679. 
With fervor and joy we give thanks to the Lord, 322. 
With heads bowed down, they stand with streaming eyes, 

478. 
With mournful pomp they bore him to the grave, 726. 
Without, the lonely night is sweet with stars, 213. 
Wonderful is my love, 721. 
Would you know the poet's soul, 99. 

794 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 



Ye daughters and soldiers of Israel look back, 60. 

Ye heavens, pray for mercy on my head, 660. 

Ye may not rear it now — though some aver, 574. 

Yea, more than they, who through the gloomy night, 43! 

"Yes, he's a Jew" — and then you shook your head, 582. 

Yes, they slay us and they smite, 217. 

Yet though the fig-tree should no burden bear, 122. 

You know the tale of Queen Esther, 334. 

You need no meed of praise in song or prose, 761. 

You see these slender tapers standing there, 324. 

Your loins let girt be, 498. 

Zion, we love thee well, 509. 



795 



INDEX TO TITLES 



Aaron Levy Green. Anonymous, 727. 

Aaron's Breastplate. Anna Sliipton, 71. 

Abraham. John Stuart Blackie, 25. 

Abraham and His Gods. Richard Monckton Milnes (Lord 
Houghton), 24. 

Absalom. Nathaniel Parker Willis, 104. 

Adam and Eve. John Milton, 20. 

Adam to Eve. John Milton, 20. 

Adas Israel, M. Beyer, 621. 

Adon 01am. Anonymous, 393. 

Adon 01am. George Borroiv, 391. 

Adon Olam. Israel Gollancz, 395. 

Adon Olam. Jessie E. Sampter, 394. 

Adon Olam. D. A, De Sola, 390. 

Adon Olam. Israel Zangivill, 390. 

Adonai Melech. Translated by Solomon Solis Cohen, 438. 

Adoration. Madame Guyon, i6. 

Adoration. David Le'vy, 410. 

After Yom Kippur. Cora Wilhurn, 294. 

Age of Toleration, The. Arthur Upton, 715. 

Akiba. Alter Ahelson, 167. 

All Father's Word, The. Emily Solis-Cohen, Jr., 358. 

All the World Shall Come to Serve Thee. Translated by 
Israel Zangivill, 453. 

All Things to All Men. Ben Joseph Palquera (translated 
by Harry W. Ettelson), 768. 

American Jewess, The. Albert Ulmann, 634. 

"... and Give Thee Peace." Florence Weisherg, 708. 

And the Heavens Shall Yield Their Dew. Solomon Ibn 
Gahirol (translated by Solomon Solis Cohen), 428. 

"And Zion Be the Glory Yet." Anonymous, 483. 

Angel, The. Dorothy S. Sil'verman, 616. 

Angel of Truth, The. Leopold Stein, 201. 

Arch of Titus, The. Harry Wolf so hn (translated by Hor- 
ace M. Kail en), 517. 

Ark of the Covenant, The. Nina Daws, 146. 

As Jacob Served for Rachel. Anonymous, 34. 

As the Stars and the Sands. S. Frug (translated by Joseph 
Jasin)f 703. 



796 



INDEX TO TITLES 



At Ellis Island. Margaret Chandler Aldrich, 590. 

At Last. Adelaide G. Waters, 185. 

At Samaria. Cliriton Scollard, 158. 

At Sinai. Isabella R. Hess, 69. 

At the Gate. Nathan F. Spiel'vogel, 593. 

Autumn Songs. S. Frug (translated by Alice Stone Black- 

ivell), 6()6. 
Awakening. Jessie E. Sampter, 481. 
Awakening of Israel, The. Anonymous, 502. 
Azrael. Henry Wadsivorth Longfellow, 120. 



Babylon. Anonymous, 144. 

Back, My Soul. Judah Ha-Lcvi (translated by M. Simon), 

237- 
Ballad of Ephron, Prince of Topers, The. Immannel Ben 
Solomon of Rome (translated by Solomon Solis Cohen), 

111- 
Ballade of Dead Cities, The. Edmund Gosse, 30. 
Banner of the Jew, The. Emma Lazarus, 309. 
Bar Kochba. Emma Lazarus, 513. 
Baroness de Rothschild. Emily Marion Harris, 727. 
Be Not Like Servants Basely Bred. Alice Lucas, 170. 
Be Thou a Jew. Samuel E. Loveman, 596. 
Before Battle. Samuel Roth, 528. 
Before the Ark. George Alexander Kohut, 149. 
Belshazzar. Bryan Waller Froctor (Barry Cornwall), 141. 
Ben Karshook's Wisdom. Robert Broivning, 175. 
Benediction, The. Harry Weiss, 410. 
Benjamin Artom. Re Henry, 726. 

Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Punch, 728. 
Beth-El. John B. Tabb, 33. 
Between Two Stools. Jnh. Heath, 767. 
Bezalel. Israel Zangzvill, 74. 
Bible, The. Anonymous, i. 
Bible, The. Richard Barton, i. 
Bible, The. Datnd Levi, i. 
Bible, The. Phcebe Palmer, 4. 
Blessing the Lights. Alter Abelson, 260. 
"Blood" V. "Bullion." Punch, 679. 
B'nai B'rith. Miriam Del Banco, 691. 
B'nai B'rith. Rosa Strauss, 693. 
Book of God. Horatius Bonnr, 5. 
Brotherly Love. Thomas Bailey Aldrich{?) , 173. 
Burial of Moses. Cecil Frances Alexander, 81. 
Burning of the Law, The. Meir of Rothenberg (translated 

bv Nina Dai'is), 430. 
But VVho Shall See? Thomas Moore, 482. 
By Babel's Streams. H. Pereira Mendes, 137, 

797 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

By the Red Sea. Judah Ha-Levi (translated by Alice 

Lucas) ^ 356. 
By the Rivers of Babylon We Sat Down and Wept. Lord 

Byron, 137. 

Call to Israel, A. Cora IVilburn, 709. 

Call to the Builders, A, Helen Gray Cone, 574. 

Candle Seller, The. Morris Rosenfeld, 575. 

Cedars of Lebanon, The. Henry Schnittkind, 499. 

Chamber over the Gate, The. Henry Wads'worth Long- 

felloiv, 106. 
Chanukah. Margaret Fireman, 329. 
Chanukah. Cecilia G. Gerson, 329. 
Chanukah. Marion Hartog, 327. 
Chanukah. Louis Stern, 332. 
Chanukah Hymn. Adolph Hnebsch, 321. 
Chanukah Lights. Harold Debrest, 324. 
Chanukah Lights. M. M., 323. 
Chanukah Lights. P. M. Raskin, 325. 
Chanukah in Russia, 1905. E. L. Levetus, 328. 
Chief among Ten Thousand, The. Horatius Bonar, 116. 
"Children of the Pale, The." Anonymous, 550. 
Chosen, The. Elizabeth McMurtrie Dinividdie, 596. 
Chosen Ones of Israel, The. Park Benjamin, 552. 
Come, My Beloved. M. M., 266. 
Come Not, oh Lord. Thomas Moore, 124. 
Commandment of Forgetfulness, The. Alice Lucas, 171. 
Confidence. Max Nordau (translated by J. F.), 765. 
Consecration Hymn. R. Wagner, 630. 
Contents of the Bible. Peter Heylyn, 10. 
Covenant of Sinai, The. Joseph Leiser, 362. 
Creation's Psalm. Sivithin Saint Siinthaine, 17. 
Crowing of the Red Cock, The. Emma Lazarus, 675. 
Cry for Zion, A. L. Smirnozv, 493. 
Cry from Russia, A. Hcrmine Schived, 671. 
Cry of Israel, The. Solomon Ibn Gabirol (translated by 

Solomon Solis Cohen), 241. 
Cry of Rachel, The. Lizette JFords^vorth Reese, 38. 

Dance of Death, The. Santob de Carrion, 244. 

Daniel. Richard Wilton, 142. 

Daughter of Zion. Anonymous, 482. 

David. Alter Abelson, loi. 

David and Jonathan. Lucretia Davidson, 95. 

David Kaufmann. George Alexander Kohut, 735. 

David's Lament. Robert Stephen Haicker, 95. 

Dawn of Hope, The. C. Pessels, 488. 

Day of Atonement. Anonymous, 292. 

Day of Rest, The. Gusiav Gotthcil, 272. 

798 



INDEX TO TITLES 

Destroying Angel, The. Ahraliam Co^vley, 51. 
Destruction of Pharaoh, The. John Ruskin, 57. 
Destruction of Sennacherib, The. Lord Byron, 127. 
Dirge of Rachel. William Knox, 39. 
Divine Love. Anonymous, 70. 
Dreyfus. Florence Earle Coatcs, 656. 
Dreyfus. Edivin Mark ham, 655. 
During the Crusades. Anonymous, 218. 
During the Crusades. David Ben Meshullam, 215. 
During the Crusades. Ezra Ben Tanhum, 219. 
During the Crusades. Eleazar, 214. 
During the Crusades. Hillel Ben Jacob, 216. 
During the Crusades. Kalonymus Ben Judah, 219. 
During the Crusades. Menahem Ben Jacob, 215. 
During the Crusades. E. //. Plumptre, 217. 
Dying in Jerusalem. Thomas Ragg, 490. 
Dying — Shall Man Live Again? Albert Frank Hoffmann, 
126. 

Ee-Chovoud. S. R. Hirsch, 488. 

Eight Chanukah Lights, The. Isidore Myers, 322. 

Ellis Island, James Oppenheim, 591. 

Emma Lazarus. Henry Cohen, 743. 

Emma Lazarus. Allan Eastman Cross, 741. 

Emma Lazarus. Richard Watson Gilder, 737. 

Emma Lazarus. Richard Watson Gilder, 738. 

Emma Lazarus. Minot Judson Salvage, 742. 

Emma Lazarus. James Maurice Thompson, 742. 

Emperor and the Rabbi, The. George Croly, 198. 

Epitaph, An. Ben Jacob (translated by Joseph Chotzner), 

767. 
Ernest Renan. Mary Darmesteter, 650. 
Esteeming the Bible. Horatius Bonar, ii. 
Esther. Helen Hunt Jackson, 336. 
Esther. Florence Weisberg, 335. 
Esther J. Ruskay. George Alexander Kohut, 746. 
Exodus x: 21-23. •^' ^- Burgon, 67. 
Eve. Lydia Huntley Sigourney, 20. 
Even as the Daily Offering. Solomon Ben Abun (translated 

by Alice Lucas), 442. 
Everlasting Jew, The. Percy Bysshe Shelley, 537. 
Everlasting Jew, The. Henry B. Sommer, 530. 



Faith. Alice Lucas, 415. 

Faithful Bride, The. Anonymous, 204. 

Fall of Jerusalem, The. Alfred Tennyson, 129. 

False Hope, The. Horace M. Kallen, 701. 

799 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Fast of Tebeth, The. Joseph Bar Samuel Toh Elem (trans- 
lated by Nina Da'vis), 369. 

Fated Race, The. Anonymous, 542. 

Feast of Freedom, The. P. M. Raskin, 358. 

Feast of Lights, The. Emma Lazarus, 319. 

Feldmesten or Measuring the Graves. .Liter Abelson, 698. 

Field of Galboa, The. IVilliam Knox, 92. 

Fin de Siecle. Anonymous, 624. 

First Song of Moses, The. George Wither, 63. 

Forgotten Rabbi, The. G. M. H., 180. 

France's 'Shame. B. B. Usher, 653. 

Frederic David Mocatta. James Meiv, 744. 

Friday Night. Isidore G. Ascher, 269. 

Friday Night. Miriam Del Banco, 268. 

Friendship. Santob de Carrion, 250. 

"From Thee to Thee." Solomon Ibn Gahirol (translated by 
/. A.), 241. 

Fullness of the Bible. H. J. Betts, 9. 

Ghetto-Jew, The. Rufus Learsi, 572. 

Gifts. Emma Lazarus, 717. 

Glory of God, The. Rebekah Hyneman, 627. 

God and His Martyrs. Chayim Nachman Byalik, 661. 

God Everywhere. Abraham Ibn Ezra (translated by D. E. 

de L.) , 420. 
God Is Nigh to Contrite Hearts. David Levy, 416. 
God of Israel, The. C. M. Kohan, 657. 
God of the World. Israel Nagara (translated by Israel 

Abrahams), 274. 
God, Whom Shall I Compare to Thee? Judah Ha-Levl 

(translated by Alice Lucas), 424. 
God's Chosen People. Adapted by Joel Blau, 598. 
God's Messengers. Mrs. A. R. Levy, 174. 
Golden Lights for Chanukah. Janie Jacobson, 321. 
Good Tidings to Zion. Thomas Kelly, 493. 
Grace after Meals. Anonymous (translated by Alice 

Lucas), 411. 
Grace for the Sabbath. Alice Lucas, 414. 
Guardian of the Red Disk, The. Emma Lazarus, 614. 
Gustav Gottheil. George Alexander Kohut, 735. 

■ Ha' Bible, The. Robert Nicoll, 8. 

Habbakuk's Prayer. William Broome, 122. 

Hagar. Hartley Coleridge, 31. 

Happy He Who Saw of Old. Solomon Ibn Gabirol (trans- 
lated by Alice Lucas), 445. 

Harp of David, The. Jchoash (translated by Alter Brody), 
103. 

800 



INDEX TO TITLES 

IJarp of Faith, The. Abram S. Isaacs, 102. 

Harp of Zion, The. James JVillis, 484. 

Harvesting of the Roses, The. Menahem Ben Jacob, 226. 

Hatikvah — a Song of Hope. Naphtali Herz Imber (trans- 
lated by Henry Snoiuman), 459. 

He of Prayer. J. F., 200. 

He Watcheth over Israel. Solomon L. Long, 486. 

Heavenly Light, The. Max Meyerhardi, 365. 

Hebrew Cradle Song. Ezekiel Leavitt (translated by Alice 
Stone Blackivell), 718. 

Hebrew Melodv. Mrs. James Gordon Brooks, 130. 

Hebrew Mind, The. M. L. R. Breslar, 618. 

Hebrew Minstrel's Lament, The. Anonymous, 133. 

Hebrew's Fridav Night, The. Anonymous, 263. 

Heine. A. R. Aldrich, 648. _ 

Heine. George Sylvester Viereck, 648. 

Heinrich Heine. Ludivig Leivisohn, 649. 

Herod's Lament for Mariamne. Lord Byron, 145. 

High Priest to Alexander, The. Alfred Tennyson, 156. 

Hillel and His Guest. Alice Lucas, 167. 

"His People." Anonymous, 534. 

Holy Cross Day. Robert Broivning, 609. 

Holy Flame "Menorah," The. George Jay Jlolland, 154, 

Hope and Faith. Isaac Leib Perez (translated by Henry 
Goodman), 625. 

Honor of the Jews. William Hodson, 533. 

Hope for the Salvation of the Lord. Abraham Ibn Ezra, 
420. 

How Long? Israel Cohen, 664. 

How Long? Judah Ha-Levi, 237. 

How Long, O Lord ? Elias Lieberman, 668, 

Hvmn for the Conclusion of the Sabbath. Alice Lucas, 276. 

Hymn for the Relief of Israel, A. Canon Jenkins, 676. 

Hymn of Glory. Translated by Alice Lucas, 386. 

Hymn of Glory, The. Judah He-Hasid (translated by 
Israel Zangivill), 381. 

Hymn of Glory, The. Translated by /. A., 384. 

Hymn of Unity. Samuel Ben Kalonymus, 381. 

Hymn of Zion, A. Joel Blau, 509. 

I Am the Suppliant. Baruch Ben Samuel (translated by 

Nina Da-vis), 451. 
"I Saw a Maiden Sweet and Fair." Rufus Learsi, 639. 
I Will Not Have You Think Me Less. Santob de Carrion, 

246. 
I Would Reply. Milton Goldsmith, 559. 
Ida Straus. Alter Abelson, 757. 
Ida Straus. Bernard Gruenstein, 'j<,'j. 

801 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Ida Straus. Anne P. L. Field, 758. 

Ida Straus. Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, 759. 

Ida Straus. Solomon Solis Cohen, 758. 

Immortality of Israel, The. Judah Ha-Levi (translated by 

Israel Cohen), 238. 
In Exile. Emma Lazarus, 669. 
In Exile. Morris Rosenfeld (translated by Isidore Myers) ^ 

503. 
In Memoriam, Ninth of Ab. Ben Avrom, 377. 
In Shushan. E. Yancey Cohen, 338. ■ 

In That Day. A. C. Benson, 106. 
In the Height and Depth of His Burning. Meshullam Ben 

Kalonymus (translated by Israel Zang^vill), 454. 
In the Hour of Need. Leto, 603. 
In the Land of Our Fathers. K. L. Sillman, 498. 
In the Name of Jesus of Nazareth. Anonymous, 663. 
Infinity of God, The. Emily Bronte, 15. 
Inspiration of the Bible. Jolin Dryden, 9. 
Into the Tomb of Ages Past. Penina Molse, 283. 
Intolerance. Ray Trum Nathan, 715. 
Invocation, An. Isidore G. Ascher, 619. 
Is It True ? Marie Harrold Garrison, 602. 
Isaac M. Wise. Albert Frank Hoffmann, 755. 
Isaac M. Wise. Walter Hart, 751. 
Isaac M. Wise. Ida Goldsmith Morris, 752. 
Isaac M. Wise. Edna Dean Proctor, 753. 
Isaac M. Wise. Harry Weiss, 754. 
Israel. John Hay, 36. 
Israel. Max Meyerhardt, 564. 
Israel. Ida Goldsmith Morris, 531. 
Israel. Israel Zangivill, 563. 
Israel and Columbia. John J. McCabe, 568. 
Israel and His Book. Felix N. Gerson, 7. 
Israel Forsaken. Charles Leon Gumpert, 531. 
Israel in Russia. Arthur Guiterman, 665. 
Israel Mocked. Anonymous, 220. 
Israelite. Santob de Carrion, 766. 
Israel's God. Laivrence Cohen, 486. 
Israel's Heritage. Ida Goldsmith Morris, 623. 
Israel's Mission. Eve Davieson, 543. 
Israel's Spiritual Lamp. George Eliot, 538. 

Jacob's Dream. S. D., 32. 

Jehovah-Nissi. The Lord My Banner. William Convper, 97. 

Jehuda Ben Halevy. Heinrich Heine (translated by Mar- 
garet Armour), 231. 

Jephthah's Daughter. Lord Byron, 86. 

Jephthah's Daughter. Jehoash (translated by Alter Brody), 
86. 

802 



INDEX TO TITLES 

Jeremiah, the Patriot. John Keble, 128. 

Jerusalem. John Kebble liervey, 476. 

Jerusalem. P. C. L., 465. 

Jesse Seligman. Noah Davis, 725. 

"Jew." George Faux Bacon, 600. 

Jew, The. George Alfred Toivnsend, 529. 

Jew in America, The. Felix N . Gerson, 570. 

Jew Is True, The. Joaquin Miller, 535. 

Jew to the Gentile, The. Sara Messing Stern, 584. 

Jew to Jesus, The. Florence Kiper Frank, 557. 

Jewess. Joaquin Miller, 635, 

Jewess, The. Allan Da'vis, 636. 

Jewish Captive, The. Elizabeth Oakes (Prince) Smith, 138. 

Jewish Captive's Song, The. Marion and Celia Moss, 132. 

Jewish Cemetery at Newport, The. Henry JVadsivorth 

Longfelloiv, 651. 
Jewish Exile, The. Leon Hiihner, 513. 
Jewish Family, A. William JVordsivorth, 632. 
Jewish Hymn in Babylon. Henry Hart Milman, 134. 
Jewish Lullaby. Eugene Field, 719. 
Jewish Martyr, The. Moss Marks, 226. 
Jewish Martyrs, The. W. V. B., 662. 
Jewish May, The. Morris Rosenfeld, 577. 
Jewish Mother^ The. A Daughter of Judah, 638. 
Jewish Mother and Her Sons before Antiochus, The. R. 

Manahan, 310. 
Jewish Pilgrim, The. Frances Broivne, 515. 
Jewish Soldier, The. Alice. Lucas, 567. 
Jewish Soldier, The. Alice Lucas, 689. 
Jews. Anonymous, 538. 
Jew's Appeal to the Christian, The. J, JV. Blencoit:e, Jr., 

555. 
Jews' Cemetery on the Lido, The. John Addington Sy- 

monds, 651. 
Jews in Russia, The. Ediuard Doyle, 659. 
Jews of Bucharest, The. Edivard Sydney Tybee, 681. 
Jews of England, The (1290-1902). Israel Zangivill, 566. 
Jews Weeping in Jerusalem, The. James JVallis Eastburn, 

489. 
Job's Confession. Edivard Young, 126. 
Josef Israels. Elias Lieberman, 748. 
Joseph Joachim. Robert Bridges, 744. 
Joseph Mayor Asher. George Alexander Kohut, 747. 
Judaeis Vita Aeterna. Charles N. Lurie, 549. 
Judah. George R. Du Bois, 551. 
Judah's Hallowed Bards. Aubrey De Fere, 11. 
Judas Maccabeus. Henry Sno^vman, 305. 
Judea. Charles M. IFallington, 519. 
Julia Richman. Helen Gray Cone, 759. 

803 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Kaddish, The. JV. W., 387. 

Kalich, Inheritor of Tragedy. Ripley D. Saunders, 643. 

King David. George Peele, 100. 

Kingdom of God, The. Edivard Buliver Lytton, 631. 

Kippur. Rebekah Hyneman, 291. 

Kishineff Massacre, The. Rose Strauss, 660. 

Kiss of God, The. John White Chadnvick, 79. 

Kol Nidre. Joseph Leiser, 288. 

Kol Nidre. M. Osias, 287. 

Kynge David, Hys Lamente over the Bodyes of Kynge 

Saul of Israel and His Sonne Jonathan. Sir Philip 

Sidney^ 93. 

Lament for Jerusalem. Marion and Celia Moss, 131. 
Lament of the Daughters of Zion. J. F., 479. 
Lamentation of David over Saul and Jonathan His Son. 

George Wither, 96. 
Last Sabbath Light, The. H. Rosenblatt (translated by 

Leah W. Leonard), 280. 
Latter Day, The. Thomas Hastings, 483. 
Legend, A. Jehoash (translated by Elias Lieberman), 617. 
Legendary Lights, /liter Abelson, 326. 
Lent Jewels, The. Richard Chenevix Trench, 189. 
Leo N. Levi. George Alexander Kohut, 746. 
Leopold Zunz. J. F., 732. 
Lessons of the Past. Harry Weiss, 627. 
Let Us Forget. K. M., 657. 
Lifting of Mine Hands, The. Mordecai Ben Shabbathai 

(translated by Nina Davis), 447. 
Light and Glory of the World, The. William Coivper, 3. 
"Light in the Eyes, The." Oscar Loeb, 581. 
Lights in the Temple. John Keble, 72. 
Like unto Sharon's Roses. Rufus Learsi, 639. 
Lines. Alice Rhine, 626. 

Lines for the Ninth of Ab. Solomon Solis Cohen, 370. 
Lines on Carmen Sylva. Emma Lazarus, 684. 
Lines to a Jewish Child. C. D., 640. 
Lines to an Anti-Semite. Edivard Sydney Tybee, 558. 
Little Jew, The. Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, 604. 
Living God, The. Abraham Ibn Ezra (translated by Alice 

Lucas), 421. 
Lo! As the Potter Mouldeth. Elsie Davis, 444. 
Loan, The. Sabine Baring-Gould, 190. 
Longing for Jerusalem. Judah Ha-Levi (translated by 

Emma Lazarus), 481. 
Lord, Do Thou Guide Me. Alice Lucas, 427. 
Lord, I Remember. Mordecai Ben Shabbeihai (translated 

by Nina Davis), 456. 

804 



INDEX TO TITLES 

Lord Is Mv Portion, The. Judah Ha-Levi, 239. 

"Lord Is My Shepherd, The, I Shall Not Want." Re Henry, 

III. 
Lord, Thou Great Jehovah. Albert Frank Hoffmann, 426. 
Louis Loeb. Louis Marshall, 747. 



Maccabean, The. Horace M. Kallen, 305. 

Maccabean Call, The. Emil G. Hirsch, 306. 

Maccabees, The. Miriam Myers, 307. 

Magic Words, The. Melvin G. IVinstock, 594. 

"Mai-Ko-Mashma-Lun." Abraham Raisin (translated by 

Henry Greenfield), 688. 
Maid of Persia. Harry Weiss, 335. 
Maid of the Ghetto, The. Anonymous, 637. 
Making of Man. Ed^in Arnold, 18. 
Man, the Image of God. Penina Moise, 413. 
Martyrdom. Rufus Learsi, 213. 
Martyr's Death, A. Mcnahem Ben Jacob, 226. 
Massacre of the Jews, The. R. A. Levy, 666. 
Massacre of the Jews at York, The. Marion and Celia 

Moss, 221. 
Mayer Sulzberger. Felix N. Gerson, 749. 
Meditations at Twilight. Joseph Leiser, 711. 
Meeting of Isaac and Rebecca, The. Arthur Hugh Clough, 

Melting Pot, The. Berton Braley, 573. 

Menorah. William Ellery Leonard, 151. 

Menorah, The. Harry Woljsohn (translated by H. B. Ehr- 
mann), 152. 

Messenger, The. O. B. Merrill, 179. 

Mezuzah, The. Alter A belson, 402. 

Miraculous Oil, The. Caroline Deutsch, 318. 

Miriam. E. Dudley Jackson, 65. 

Miser, The. Ben Zed (translated by Joseph Chotzner), 768. 

Mizpah. Anonymous, 36. 

Moabitess, The. Phillips Brooks, 91. 

Mock On! Mock On! William Blake, 534. 

Mo'oz Tsur Yeshu'osi (translated by Solomon Solis Cohen), 
330. 

Moral of It, The. Samuel Gordon, 350. 

Mordecai. Anonymous, 343. 

Mordecai. Helen Hunt Jackson, 344. 

Moritz Steinschneider. George Alexander Kohut, 732. 

Morning Invocation. Solorn^in Ibn Gabirol, 406. 

Morning Song. Solomon Ibn Gabirol (translated by Alice 
Lucas), 405. 

Morning Song. Henry S. Jacobs, 404. 

Moses. John Stuart Blackie, 46. 

805 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Moses. A'^. N., 40. 

Moses and Jesus. Israel Zangivill, 557. 

Moses and the Angel. Ed^iri Arnold, 74. 

Moses and the Dervish. Oiven Meredith, 76. 

"Moses as Lamp-Bearer." fVilliam Siigand, 71. 

Moses in the Desert. James Montgomery, 50. 

"Moses" of Michael Angelo, The. Robert Bronvning, 77. 

Moses on Mount Nebo. /. Solomon, 77. 

Moses Mendelssohn. Aliriam Del Banco, 645. 

Mount Sinai. Horatius Bonar, 67. 

Mrs. Ellis A. Franklin. Anonymous, 745. 

My Father's Bible. George Alexander Kohut, 734. 

My Heart Is in the East. Judah Ha-Levi (translated by 

H. Pereira Mendes), 240. 
My Heritage. Cora IVilburn, 547. 
My Times Are in Thy Hands! Christopher Neivman Hall, 

no. 
Myer Davis. Isaac Lazaroivich, 760. 
Mystic Tie, The. Max Meyerhardt, 546. 

Na-Ha-Moo. 7. C. Levy, 136. 

Nature and the Poet. S. Frug, 699. 

Nehemiah to Artaxerxes. jniliam Knox, 140. 

New Jewish Hospital at Hamburg, The. Heinrich Heine, 

712. 
New Temple, The. Louis Marshall, 629. 
New Year. Florence Weisberg, 285. 
New Year — 1905, 5666. Jacob Klein, 285. 
New Year Hymn. Joseph Krauskopf, 435. 
Night Prayer. Alice Lucas, 407. 
Night Prayer. Alice Lucas, 408. 
Night Prayer. Florence Weisberg, 406. 
Nishmas. Penina Mo'ise, 409. 
Nishmas. Florence Weisberg, 408. 
"No Man Knoweth His Sepulchre." William Cullen Bry- 

ant, 81. 
Not by Power. Mary M. Cohen, 625. 
Now Die Away My Tuneful Song. Anonymous, 213. 

O Israel. Robert Loveman, 536. 

O Long the Way. Morris Rosenfeld, 575. 

O Lord, I Call on Thee. Abraham Ibn Ezra, 425. 

O Soul, with Storms Beset. Solomon Ibn Gabirol (trans- 
lated by Alice Lucas) ^ 242^^ 

O Sweet Anemones! Jessie E. Sampter, 500. 

O Thou Eternal One. Gabriel Romanovitch Derzhavin 
(translated by Sir John B oaring), 15. 

Ode on Chazanuth. Nina Davis, 389. 

806 



INDEX TO TITLES 

Ode to the Sacred Lamps. M. L. R. Breslar, i6o. 

Ode to the Statue of Moses. Anonymous, 84. 

Ode to Zion. Judah lia-Levi (translated by N'uia Da'vis), 

374- 
Ode to Zion. Judah Ha-Lcvi (translated by Alice Lucas), 

371- 

Oh! City of the World. Judah Ha-Levi (translated by 
Kate Magnus), 238. 

Oh! Weep for Those. Lord Byron, 135. 

Old Book, The. Abram S. Isaacs, 7. 

Omer, The. M. M., 361. 

On ! George Benedict, 463. 

On Attempting to Convert the Jews to Christianity. Anony- 
mous, 694. 

On the Day of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. 
Lord Byron, 157. 

On the Grave of Michael Gordon. S. Frug, 700. 

On the Massacre. Chayi?n Nachman Byalik, 660. 

On the Picture of the Finding of Moses by Pharaoh's Daugh- 
ter. Charles and Mary Lamb, 48. 

On the Russian Persecution of the Jews. Algernon Charles 
Sivinburne, 659. 

On to the East. Naphtali Herz Imbcr (translated by Re- 
becca A. Altman), 498. 

On to the Promised Land. Rufus Learsi, 471. 

On Translating the Psalms. Sampson Guideon, Jr., 12. 

On Viewing a Statue of David. Eva Gore-Booth, 108. 

Only a Jew. Anonymous, 607. 

"Only a Jew." P. H., 560. 

Only a Jew. Damd Banks Sickles, 599. 

Onward. 7. M. Manicoff, 462. 

Optimism. /. Z. Josephson, 721. 

Oriental Maiden, An. J. 0. Jenkyns, 637. 

Orientale. William Henley, 636. 

Oscar Cohen. H. B. Gayfer, 745. 

Our Creed. J. Leonard Levy, 395. 

Our Heritage. Isidore G. Ascher, 623. 

Our Password. Isidore G. Ascher, 599. 

Out of Egypt. Dorothea De Pass, 54. 

Out of the Depths. Joseph Jasin, 702. 

Outgoing of Sabbath, The. Alter Abelson, 279. 

Palms and Myrtles. Eleazar Kalir (translated by Alice 

Lucas, 296. 
Paraphrase of Adon 01am. David Nunes Carvalho, 392. 
Passage of the Red Sea. Anonymous, 59. 
Passage of the Red Sea. Reginald Heber, 56. 
Passage of the Red Sea, The. Henry Hart Milman, 58. 
Passing of Rabbi Assi, The. Editsin Pond Parker, 186. 

807 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Passover. Abram S. Isaacs, 354. 

Passover. Deborah Kleinert Janonvitz, 355. 

Passover, The. R. E. S., 52. 

Passover Hymn from the Haggada, A. J. F., 355. 

Patriotism. Translated by Robert Needham Cust, 720. 

Peace — and Honor. Herman C. Merivale, 730. 

Pentecost. Annette Kohn, 366. 

People of Zion. Marie Harrold Garrison, 543. 

Persecuted Jew, The. Stephen Taylor Denkins, 663. 

Pesach Le'Osid. Anonymous, 360. 

Phedre. Oscar Wilde, 749. 

Pillow and Stone. Abram S. Isaacs, 33. 

Poetry. Louis Untermeyer, 622. 

Poets of Old Israel. John Vance Cheney, 13. 

Poet's Soul, The. Anonymous, 99. , 

Poet's Spirit, The, Joseph Fitzpairick, 508. 

Prayer. Solomon Ibn Gabirol, 420. 

Prayer, A. F. H. Friedlander, 418. 

Prayer, A. Alice Lucas, 417. 

Prayer for the Day of Atonement. George Alexander 

Kohut, 293. 
Prayer of Solomon at the Consecration of the Temple, The. 

Rebekah Hyneman, U2. 
Prayer of the High Priest, The. Marie Harrold Garrison, 

155- 
Pride of a Jew, The. Judah Ha-Levi (translated by Israel 

Cohen), 239. 
Princess Sabbath. Heinrich Heine (translated by Margaret 

Armour), 253. 
Promised Land, The. Jessie E. Sampter, 474. 
Psalm Vn. Alfred S. Schiller-Szinessy, 109. 
Psalm CXIV. Myrtilla E. Mitchell, 55. 
Psalm CXXVI. /. R. B., 504. 
Puissance of the Jew. C. JV. Wynne, 533. 
Purim. Label, 337. 
Purim. C. David Matt, 345. 
Purim. Myrtilla E. Mitchell, 340. 
Purim, 1900. Alice D. Braham, 348. 
Purim Poem, A. Isabella R. Hess, 334. 
Purim Retrospect, A. W. S. Hoivard, 346. 

Rabbi Ben Ezra. Robert Broivning, 615. 
Rabbi Ben Hissar. Anonymous, 177. 
Rabbi's Present, The. Anonymous, 767. 
Rabbi's Song, The. Rudyard Kipling, 617. 
Rabbi's Vision, The. Frances Broivne, 195. 
Rachel. Anonymous, 642. 
Rachel. Mattheiv Arnold, 640. 
Rainbow, The. Felicia Hemans, 22. 

808 



INDEX TO TITLES 

Rainbow, The. Henry Vatighan, 22. 

Rallying Song. Jessie E. Sampler, 497. 

Rebecca, the Jewess. Clark B. CocJirane, 634. 

Rebecca's Hymn. Sir Walter Scott, 631. 

Recognition. Miriam Teichner, 601. 

Redemption. Anonymous, 492. 

Repent One Day before Thy Death. Rabbi Eleazar, 209. 

Rescue of Moses. Anonymous, 42. 

Restoration of Israel, The. James Montgomery, 485. 

Return, The. R. E. I., 471. 

Return from Captivity, The. Marion and Celia Moss, 139. 

Right of Asylum, The. Stephen Phillips, 567. 

Rodef Shalom. W. G. Skillman, 628. 

Rose of Sharon, The. Abram S. Isaacs, 118. 

Rose of Sharon, The. Harry Weiss, 713. 

Rosh-Hashanah. Joseph K. Foran, 284. 

Royal Crown, The. Israel Abrahams, 434. 

Royal Crown, The. Solomon Ibn Gabirol (translated by 
Rebecca A. Altman), 435. 

Rude Are the Tabernacles Now. Anonymous, 415. 

Ruler of the Nations, The. John Keble, 129. 

Russia and the Jews. Punch, 660. 

Russian Jewish Rabbi, The. Translated by Herman Bern- 
stein, 685. 

Ruth. Felicia Hemans, 90. 

Ruth. Thomas Hood, 88. 

Ruth. H. Hyman, 90. 

Ruth and Naomi. Lo^vell Courier, 91. 

Ruth and Naomi. William Oliver Bourn Peabody, 89. 

Sabbath. Alter Abelson, 271. 

Sabbath, The. Nina Davis, 270. 

Sabbath Day, The — Kiddush and Habdalah. Anonymous, 

278. 
Sabbath Eve, The. Samuel Augustus Willoughby Duffield, 

267. 
Sabbath Hymn. Solomon Alkabiz, 265. 
Sabbath Hymn. Aaron Cohen, 270. 
Sabbath Lamp, The. Grace Aguilar, 258. 
Sabbath of Rest, A. Attributed to Isaac Luria (translated 

by Nina Davis), 275. 
Sabbath Thoughts. Grace Aguilar, 273. 
Sacred Lyric. Isidore G. Ascher, 418. 
Samson. John Milton, 88. 
Sand and Stars. S. Frug, 700. 

Sandalphon, Henry JVadsivorth Longfelloiv, 207. 
Sea of the Talmud, The. Joseph Leiser, 163. 
Search for Leaven, The. Alter Abelson, 349. 
Seder, The. J. F., 352. 

809 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

Seder-Night. Israel Zang^will, 353. 

Seeing Eye, The. Reginald Heber, 15. 

Selichoth. Alter Abelson, 280. 

Sentinel of the Ages, The. Ibbie McColm Wilson, 523. 

Separation. Judah Ha-Levi, 240. 

Servant of God. Judah Ha-Levi (translated by Israel 
Zangivill), 436. 

Sfere. Morris Rosenfeld, 361. 

Shema Yisrael Adonay-Elohainu Adonay-Echod. Ibbie Mc- 
Colm Wilson, 595. 

Shema-Yisroel-Adonai-Elohenu-Adonai-Echod. Nathan Bern- 
stein, 548. 

Shofar Echoes. Annette Kohn, 286. 

Shoshanah, The. George E. Chodoivsky, 469. 

Side by Side. Isabella R. Hess, 706. 

Simchas Torah. J. L. Gordon, 301. 

Simchas Torah. C. Daofid Matt, 303. 

Simchas Torah. Morris Rosenfeld, 300. 

Simeon Singer. John Chapman, 733. 

Simon Wolf. Felix N. Gerson, 760. 

Since We Be Standing. Ephraim Ben Isaac (translated by 
Nina Da'vis), 449. 

Sing unto God a New Song. Eugene Kohn, 503. 

Sir Moses Montefiore. Ambrose Bierce, 724. 

Sir Moses Montefiore. E. Yancey Cohen, 722. 

Sir Moses Montefiore. Miriam Del Banco, 'jz'^. 

Sir Moses Montefiore. Louis Meyerhardt, 724. 

Sir Moses Montefiore. Punch, 723. 

Slaughter of the Jews, The. A. J. Waterhouse, 673. 

Sleep. Elizabeth Barrett Brozvning, 109. 

Solomon and the Bees. John Godfrey Saxe, 114. 

Solomon Schechter. Alter Abelson, 736. 

Solomon's Song. Regina Miriarn Bloch, 117. 

Song at the Red Sea. George Lansing Taylor, 62. 

Song for Friday Night. Isidore Myers, 261. 

Song of David, The. Christopher Sharp, 98. 

Song of Israel, A. J. H. Cuthbert, 541. 

Song of Israel to God. Judah Ha-Le<vi (translated by 
Alice Lucas), 405. 

Song of Judas Maccabeus before the Battle of Maspha. Re- 
■ hekah Hyneman, 317. 

Song of Life, A. Abraham Ibn Ezra (translated by E. N. 
A.), 422. 

Song of Miriam, The. Anonymous, 60. 

Song of Redemption, A. Solomon Ibn Gabirol (translated 
by Nina Da'vis), 229. 

Song of Saul before His Last Battle. Lord Byron, 92. 

Song of the Dew. Translated by Solomon Solis Cohen, 428. 

Song of the Jewish Captives. Henry Neile, 132. 

810 



INDEX TO TITLES 

Song of the Spanish Jews. Grace Aguilar, 245. 

Song of Zion, A. Carroll Ryan, 495. 

Song of Zion, A. fValter Vcrnon-Epste'in, 467, 

Sonnet. Immaniiel Ben Solomon of Rome, 248. 

Sonnet. Canon Jenkins, 722. 

Sonnet. George Alexander Kohut, 736. 

Sonnet. Rachel Morpurgo, 249. 

Sonnet. Sara Copia Siillam, 249. 

Sonnet, A. M. L. R. Breslar, 618. 

Sound the Loud Timbrel. Thomas Moore, 61. 

"Speak, Lord, for Thy Servant Heareth." James Drum- 
mo nd Borthivick, 85. 

Spirit of Hebraism, The. Harry Wolfsohn (translated bv 
//. B. Ehrmann), 539. 

Spirit of the Sabbath, The. Isidore G. Ascher, 253. 

Stamp of Civilization, The. Max Nordau (translated bv 
J. F.), 765. 

Star of Discontent, The. X., 553. 

Succoth. M. A/., 297. 

Succoth Kymn, A. Joseph Leiser, 299. 

Sunshine after Storm. William Dearness, i68. 

Supplication. Jose Ben Jose, 443. 

Tabernacle, The. Rose Emma Collins, 296. 
Tabernacle Thought, A. Israel Zangivill, 298. 
Tale from the Talmud, A. William Dearness, 313. 
Talmud, The. iS". Frug (translated by Alice Stone Black- 

^vell)y 165. 
Temple, The. Da<vid Levi, 159. 
Tent of Abraham, The. Charles Sivain, 28. 
Tephillin. Aaron Schaffer, 403. 
'Tis to the East. Anonymous, 487. 
Thee I Will Seek. Simeon Ben Isaac Ben Abun (translated 

by Israel Zangicill), 439. 
Theodore Herzl. Felix N. Gerson, 505. 
Theodore Herzl. Harry Myers, 507. 
Theodore Herzl. Israel Zangiuill, 507. 
They Call Us Jews. Milton Goldsmith, 553. 
They Tell Me. Ezekiel Leavitt (translated by Alice Stone 

Blacktvcll), 716. 
Think on God. R. E. S., 125. 
Thou Art a Jew. /. N. L., 561. 
Thou Art of All Created Things. Calderon, 14. 
Thoug' t for the Ninth of Ab, A. Hadassah, 378. 
To Carmen Svlva (Queen of Roumania). Emma Lazarus, 

682. 
To David. Miriam Suhler, loi. 

To Drevfus Vindicated. Robert Underivood Johnson, 654. 
"To Forgive Is Divine." M. L. R. Breslar, 678. 

811 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 

To God. Gregory Nanziansen (translated by Allen W . 
Chatfield)^ 13, 

To Heinrich Heine. George Alexander Kohut, 650. 

To Judah Ha-Levi. M. L. R. Breslar, 236. 

To My Lyre. Joseph Massel, 721. 

To Russia. Joaquin Miller, 672. 

To Simon Wolf. George Alexander Kohut, 761. 

To Simon Wolf on His Eightieth Birthday. George Alex- 
ander Kohut, 761. 

To the Czar — a Prophecy. Ida (Mrs. Isidor) Straus, 677. 

To the Glory of Jerusalem. Judah Ha-Levi, 464. 

To the Memory of Grace Aguilar. Anonymous, 644. 

To Theodore Herzl. Gusta^v Goitheil (translated by 
George Alexander Kohut, 506. 

To Walter Lionel de Rothschild on His Bar Mitzvah. 
Louis B. Abrahams, 721. 

To Young Israel. M. Osias, 545. 

To Zion. M. B. S., 472. 

Tombs of the Fathers, The. James Montgomery, 519. 

Tongue, The. Anonymous, 206. 

Tongue, The. John D. Nussbaum, 205. 

Tourist and Cicerone. Ludiuig August Frankl (translated 
by Henry Cohen), 517. 

Translation of the Patriarch. Lucy A. Randall, 22. 

Tribute to the Jews, A. Rufus C. Hopkins, 587. 

Trust. M. M., 122. 

Trustfulness. J. Leonard Le'vy, 123. 

Turn of the Years, The. //. B. Friedlander, 282. 

Twenty-one Years of Rescue Work. Alice Lucas, 708. 

Twin Stars, The. Joel Blau (translated by Joel Blau), 277. 

Twin Stars, The. Joel Blau (translated by George Alex- 
ander Kohut), 278. 

Two Friends, The. John Godfrey Saxe, 194. 

Two Rabbins, The. John Greenleaf IVhittier, 181. 

Two Rabbis, The. Mrs. Levitus, 184. 

"Under No Skies But Ours." Helen Gray Cone, 738. 
Universal Mother, The. Sabine Baring-Gould, 206. 
Uralter Spruch, Ein. Heinrich Heine, 765. 

Value of Repentance. Robert Herrick, 209. 
Vashti. Helen Hunt Jackson, 333. 
Vision of Belshazzar. Lord Byron, 143. 
Vision of His People, The. Leon Gordon, 766. 
Vision of Huna, The. /Jbram S. Isaacs, 176. 
Voice of God, The. M. M., 419. 

Wailing Place in Jerusalem, The. Louis Federleicht, 478. 
Wandering. Samuel Roth, 473. 

812 



INDEX TO TITLES 

Wandering Jew, The. David Levi, 522. 

Watchman! What of the Night? James Meiv, 124. 

Water Song. Solomon Ibn Gabirol (translated by Israel 

Abrahams) y 770. 
Water Song. Solomon Ibn Gabirol (translated by Joseph 

Chotzner), 771. 
Weep, Children of Israel. Thomas Moore, 80. 
What Praise Is on Our Lips? Joseph Leiser, 364. 
What Rabbi Jehosha Said. James Russell Loiiell, 172. 
When I Think of Thee, O Zion. John D. Nussbaum, 491. 
When Is the Jew in Paradise? Joseph Leiser, 272. 
White and Scarlet Thread, The. Anonymous, 294. 
"Whither Shall I Go?" Eliza Scudder, 17. 
Who Are the Wise? Anonymous, 172. 
Who Gives in Love. Isidor Wise, 619. 
Who Serves Best. George Alexander Kohut, 169. 
"... Whom You Are ta Blame." P. M. Raskin, 704. 
Why Should I Wander Sadly? Susskind von Trimberg,2^%. 
Wife's Treasure, The. Sabine Baring-Gould, 768. 
Wild Gazelle, The. Lord Byron, 139. 
Wine Song. Judah Al-Harizi (translated by /. A.), 772. 
Wisdom. Isidore Myers, 121. 
Written Word, The. Sir Robert Grant, 5. 

Yea, More Than They. Alice Lucas, 438. 

Yellow Badge, The. Ruth Schechter Alexander, 585. 

"Yes, He's a Jew." John Paul Cosgrave, 582. 

Yigdal. Philip Abraham, 399. 

Yigdal. Florence A hronsberg, 398. 

Yigdal. Alice Lucas, 401. 

Yigdal. Israel Zangiiill, 397. 

Yom Kippur. Gustav Gottheil, 293. 

Yom Kippur. George Alexander Kohut, 293. 

Young Moses, The. Anonymous, 44. 

Young Rabbi, The. E. C. L. Bro^vne, 707. 

Zion. Louis Federleicht, 466. 

Zion. Eugene KoJin, 501. 

Zionism. Miriam Blaustein, 496. 

Zionism. Herbert N. Carson, 496. 

Zionism. Joseph Leiser, 505. 

Zionism. Samuel Roth, 473. 

Zionist Marching Song. Nafihtali Ilerz Imber (translated 

by Israel Zangzvill), 460. 
Zion's Universal Temple. Harry Weiss, 540. 



813 



INDEX TO AUTHORS 



Abelson, Alter, 102, 168, 
261, 271, 279, 282, 327, 
350, 403, 699, 737, 757. 

Abraham, Philip, 401. 

Abrahams, Israel, 434. 

Abrahams, Louis B., 722. 

Abun, Simeon Ben Isaac 
Ben, 442. 

Abun, Solomon Ben, 443. 

Aguilar, Grace, 246, 260, 

273- 

Ahronsberg, Florence, 399. 

Aldrich, a. R., 648. 

Aldrich, Margaret Chand- 
ler, 591. 

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 
174. 

Alexander, Cecil Frances, 

83. 
Alexander, Ruth Schech- 

TER, 587. 

Al-Harizi, Judah, 772. 

Alkabiz, Solomon, 265, 

Anonymous, i, 35, 36, 44, 
46, 60, 61, 71, 84, 100, 134, 
145, 172, 179, 204, 206, 
213, 219, 220, 264, 278, 
292, 294, 344, 361, 394, 
412, 416, 482, 484, 487, 
492, 502, 535, 538, 543, 
550, 609, 625, 638, 642, 
645, 664, 696, 727, 745, 
767. 

Arnold, Edwin, 19, 76. 

Arnold, Matthew, 642. 

Ascher, Isidore G., 253, 270, 
419, 599, 621, 623. 



Bacon, George Vaux, 600. 
Baring-Gould, Sabine, 194, 

207, 769. 
Barton, Richard, i. 
Baruch, Ben SaxMUEl, 453. 
Ben Avrom, 378. 
Ben Jacob, 768. 
Ben Zed, 768. 
Benedict, George, 464. 
Benjamin, Park, 553. 
Benson, A. C, 106. 
Bernstein, Nathan, 549. 
Betts, H. J., 9. 
Beyer, M., 622. 
Bierce, Ambrose, 725. 
Blackie, John Stuart, 27, 

48. 
Blake, William, 534, 
Blau, Joel, 277, 278, 509, 

598. 
Blaustein, Miriam, 496. 
Blencowe, J. W., Jr., 557. 
Bloch, Regina Miriam, 118. 
Bonar, Horatius, 7, II, 68, 

117. 
Borrow, George, 391. 
BoRTHwicK, James Drum- 

MOND, 85. 

Braham, Alice D., 348. 

Braley, Berton, 574. 

Breslar, M. L. R., 160, 237, 
618, 619, 678. 

Bridges, Robert, 744. 

Bronte, Emily, 16. 

Brooks, Mrs. James Gor- 
don, 131. 

Brooks, Phillips, 91. 



814 



INDEX TO AUTHORS 



Broome, William, 122. 

Browne, E. C. L., 707. 

Browne, Frances, 198, 517. 

Browning, Elizabeth Bar- 
rett, 109. 

Browning, Robert, 77, 176, 
614, 616. 

Bryant, William Cullen, 
81. 

burgon, j. w., 67. 

Byalik, Chayim Nachman, 
661, 662, 

Byron, Lord, 86, 92, 128, 
136, 137, 139, 144, 146, 
157- 

G. D., 640. 

Calderon, 14. 

Carson, Herbert N., 497. 

Carvalho, David Nunes, 

392. 
Chadwick, John White, 80. 
Chapman, John, 734. 
Cheney, John Vance, 12. 
Chodowsky, George, 470. 
Clough, Arthur Hugh, 32. 
CoATES, Florence Earle, 

656. 
Cochrane, Clark B., 634. 
Cohen, Aaron, 270. 
Cohen, E. Yancey, 340, 723. 
Cohen, Emily Solis-, Jr., 

358. 
Cohen, Henry, 743. 
Cohen, Israel, 665. 
Cohen, Lawrence, 486. 
Cohen, Mary M., 626. 
Cohen, Solomon Solis, 371, 

758. 
Coleridge, Hartley, 31. 
Collins, Rose Emma, 297. 
Cone, Helen Gray, 574, 

741, 760. 
CosGRAVE, John Paul, 583. 
Courier, Lowell, 92. 
Cowley, Abraham, 52. 
Cowper, William, 4, 98. 
Craik, Dinah Maria Mu- 

LOCK, 607. 



Croly, George, 200. 

Cross, Allan Eastman, 741. 

Cuthbert, B. H., 542. 

Darmesteter, Mary, 651. 
Daughter of Judah, A, 638. 
David Ben Meshullam, 216. 
Davidson, Lucretia, 96. 
Davieson, Eve, 545. 
Davis, Allan, 636. 
Davis, Elsie, 445. 
Davis, Nina, 149, 270, 389. 
Davis, Noah, 725. 
Dearness, William, 169, 

317- 

Debrest, Harold, 325. 

Dekins, Stephen Taylor, 
663. 

Del Banco, Miriam, 269, 
647, 692, 723. 

De Pass, Dorothea, 55. 

Derzhavin, Gabriel Ro- 
manovitch, 15. 

De Sola, D. A., 390. 

Deutsch, Caroline, 319. 

De Vere, Aubrey, h. 

DiNwiDDiE, Elizabeth Mc- 
Murtrie, 597. 

Doyle, Edward, 659, 

Dryden, John, 10. 

Du Bois, George R., 551. 

DuFFiELD, Samuel Augus- 
tus Willoughby, 268. 

Eastburn, James Wallis, 

490. 
Eleazar, 214. 
Eleazar, Rabbi, 209. 
Eliot, George, 539. 
Ephraim Ben Isaac, 451. 
Ezra Ben Tanhum, 219. 

Federleicht, Louis, 467, 479. 
Field, Anne P. L., 758. 
Field, Eugene, 720. 
Fireman, Margaret, 329. 
Fitzpatrick, Joseph, 508. 
Foran, Joseph K.. 285. 
Frank, Florence Kiper, 557. 



815 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



Frankl, Ludwig August, 

518. 
Friedlander, H. B., 282. 
Friedlander, v. H., 418. 
Frug, S., 166, 697, 699, 700, 

701, 704. 

G. M. H., 181. 

Gabirol, Solomon Ibn, 230, 

241, 242, 243, 405, 406, 

420, 429, 436, 447, 771, 

772. 
Garrison, Marie Harrold, 

156, 543, 602. 
Gayfer, H. B., 745. 
Gerson, Cecilia G., 330. 
Gerson, Felix N., 8, 506, 

572, 750, 761. 
Gilder, Richard Watson, 

738. 
Goldsmith, Milton, 555, 

560. 
Gollancz, Israel, 395. 
Gordon, J. L., 303. 
Gordon, Leon, 766. 
Gordon, Samuel, 352. 
Gore-Booth, Eva, 108. 
GossE, Edmund, 30. 
Gottheil, Gustav, 272, 294, 

506. 
Grant, Sir Robert, 5. 
Gruenstein, Bernard, 758. 
GuiDEON, Sampson, Jr., 13. 
Guiterman, Arthur, dSG. 
GuMPERT, Charles Leon, 

533- 
GuYON, Madame, 17. 

Hadassah. See Hess, Isa- 
bella R. 

Hall, Christopher New- 
man, III. 

Harris, Emily Marion, 728. 

Hartog, Marion, 328. 

Hastings, Thomas, 483. 

Hawker, Robert Stephen, 

95- 
Hay, John, 38. 



Heath, John, 767. 

Heber, Reginald, 15, 57. 

Heine, Heinrich, 236, 258, 
713, 766. 

Hemans, Felicia, 22, 91. 

Henley, William, 636. 

Henry, Re, 112, 726. 

Herrick, Robert, 209. 

Hervey, John Kebble, 478. 

Hess, Isabella R. [Hadas- 
sah], 70, 335, 378, 707. 

Heylyn, Peter, 10. 

HiLLEL Ben Jacob, 217. 

Hirsch, Emil G., 307. 

Hirsch, S. R., 488. 

Hodson, William, 533. 

Hoffmann, Albert Frank, 

127, 427, 756. 
Holland, George Jay, 155. 
Hood, Thomas, 89. 
Hopkins, Rufus C, 590. 
Howard, W. S., 348. 
Huebsch, Adolph, 321. 
HiJHNER, Leon, 515. 
Hurt, William, 752. 
Hyman, H., 90. 
Hyneman, Rebekah, 113, 

292, 318, 627. 

L N. L., 562. 

I. R. B, 505. 

Ibn Ezra, Abraham, 420, 

421, 422, 423, 426. 
Imber, Naphtali Herz, 460, 

461, 499. 
Immanuel Ben Solomon of 

Rome, 248, 776. 
Isaacs, Abram S., 7, 33, 102, 

119, i77» 354- 

J. F., 201, 353> 355, 480, 732. 
Jackson, E. Dudley, 67. 
Jackson, Helen Hunt, 333, 

337, 345- 
Jacobs, Henry S., 404. 
Jacobson, Janie, 321. 
Janowitz, Deborah Klein- 

BRT, 356. 
Jasin, Joseph, 703. 



816 



INDEX TO AUTHORS 



Jehoash, 87, 103, 617. 
Jenkins, Canon, 676, 722. 
Jenkyns, J. O., 637. 
Johnson, RoiERT Under- 
wood, 655. 
Jose Ben Jose, 444. 
JosEPHSON, I. Z., 721. 

JUDAH Ha-LeVI, 237, 238, 

239, 240, 357, 374, 377, 
406, 425, 438, 465, 481. 

JUDAH He-HaSID, 383. 

K. M., 657. 

Kalir, Eleazar, 296. 

Kallen, Horace M., 305, 

701. 
Kalonymus Ben Judah, 220. 
Keble, John, 73, 129. 
Kelly, Thomas, 493. 
Kipling, Rudyard, 618. 
Klein, Jacob, 286. 
Knox, William, 40, 93, 141. 
KOHAN, C. M., 658. 
Kohn, Annette, 287, 369. 
KoHN, Eugene, 502, 503. 
KoHUT, George Alexander, 

150, 170, 293, 650, 733, 

734, 735. 736, 746, 747, 761, 
762. 
Krauskopf, Joseph, 435. 

Label, 338. 

Lamb, Charles and Mary, 

50. 
Lazarowich, Isaac, 760. 
Lazarus, Emma, 310, 320, 

513, 615, 671, 676, 684, 

685, 718. 
Learsi, Rufus, 214, 472, 572, 

639, 640. 
Leavitt, Ezekiel, 716, 719. 
Leiser, Joseph, 165, 273, 291, 

299, 364, 365, 505, 712. 
Leonard, William Ellery, 

153- 
Leto, 604. 

Levetus, E. L., 328. 
Levi, David, 3, 159, 523. 
Levitus, Mrs., 185. 



Levy, Mrs. A. R., 175. 

Levy, David, 410, 417. 

Levy, J. C, 136. 

Levy, J. Leonard, 123, 396. 

Levy, R. A., 668. 

Lewisohn, Ludwig, 650. 

Lieberman, Elias, 669, 748. 

Loeb, Oscar, 582. 

Long, Solomon L., 487. 

Longfellow, Henry Wads- 
worth, 108, 120, 208, 653. 

Loveman, Robert, 537. 

LovEMAN, Samuel E., 596. 

Lowell, James Russell, 173. 

Lucas, Alice, 167, 171, 172, 
277, 402, 407, 408, 415, 
417, 427, 438, 568, 690, 
709. 

LuRiA, Isaac, 276. 

LuRiE, Charles N., 549. 

Lytton, Edward Bulwer, 
631. 

M. B. S., 473. 

M. M., 122, 266, 298, 324, 
361, 419. 

McCabe, John J., 569. 

Manahan, R., 313. 

Manicoff, J. M., 463. 

Markham, Edwin, 656. 

Marks, Moss, 229. 

Marshall, Louis, 630, 747. 

Massel, Joseph, 721. 

Matt, C. David, 304, 346. 

Meir of Rothenberg, 434. 

Menahem Ben Jacob, 215, 
226. 

Mendes, H. Pereira, 138. 

Meredith, Owen, 77. 

Merivale, Herman C, 731. 

Merrill, O. B., 180. 

Meshullam Ben Kalony- 
mus, 456. 

Mew, James, 124, 744. 

Meyerhardt, Louis, 724. 

Meyerhardt, Max, 366, 547, 
566. 

Miller, Joaquin, 536, 635, 
672. 



817 



STANDARD BOOK OF JEWISH VERSE 



MiLMAN, Henry Hart, 59, 

135. 
MiLNES, Richard Monckton 

(Lord Houghton), 25. 
Milton, John, 20, 88. 
Mitchell, Myrtilla E., 56, 

343- 
MoVsE, Penina, 283, 409, 

414. 
Montgomery, James, 51,485* 

521. 
MooRE, Thomas, 62, 80, 124, 

482. 
MoRDECAi Ben Shabbethai, 

449, 456. 
MoRPURGO, Rachel, 249. 
Morris, Ida Goldsmith, 531, 

624, 753- 
Moss, Marion and Celia, 

131, 133, 139, 225. 
Myers, Harry, 508. 
Myers, Isidore, 122, 262, 323. 
Myers, Miriam, 308. 

N. N., 42. 

Nagara, Israel, 274. 
Nanzianzen, Gregory, 14. 
Nathan, Ray Trum, 715. 
Neile, Henry, 132. 
NicoLL, Robert, 8. 
Nordau, Max, 765. 
Nussbaum, John D., 205, 
492. 

Oppenheim, James, 593. 
OsiAS, M., 288, 545. 

P. C. L., 466. 
P. H., 561. 
Palmer, Phoebe, 4. 
Palquera, Ben Joseph, 768. 
Parker, Edwin Pond, 189. 
Peabody, William Oliver 

Bourn, 90. 
Peele, George, ioi. 
Perez, Isaac Leib, 625. 
Pessels, C, 489. 
Phillips, Stephen, 567. 



Plumptre, E. H., 2i8. 
Proctor, Bryan Waller 

(Barry Cornwall), 142. 
Proctor, Edna^ Dean, 753. 
Punch, 660, 681, 724, 730. 

R. E. I., 471. 
R. E. S., 54, 126. 
Ragg, Thomas, 491. 
Raisin, Abraham, 688. 
Randall, Lucy A., 23. 
Raskin, P. M., 326, 360, 706. 
Reese, Lizette Wordsworth, 

39- 

Rhine, Alice, 627. 

Robinson, Corinne Roose- 
velt, 759. 

Rosenblatt, H., 280. 

rosenfeld, morris, 3oi, 362, 

504, 575, 577, 581. 
Roth, Samuel, 473, 474, 528. 
RusKiN, John, 58. 
Ryan, Carroll, 496. 

S. D., 33. 

Saint Swithaine, Swithin, 

18. 
Sampter, Jessie E., 394, 475, 

481, 497, 501. 
Samuel Ben Kalonymus, 

381. 
Santob de Carrion, 244, 247, 

250, 766. 
Saxe, John Godfrey, 115, 

195. 
Saunders, Ripley D., 644. 
Savage, Minot Judson, 742. 
Schaffer, Aaron, 404. 
Schiller-Szinessy, Arthur 

S., no. 
Schnittkind, Henry, 500. 
Schwed, Hermine, 672. 
Scollard, Clinton, 159. 
Scott, Sir Walter, 632. 
Scudder, Eliza. 17. 
Sharp, Christopher, 99. 
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 538. 
Shipton, Anna, 72. 
Sickles, David Banks, 600. 



818 



INDEX TO AUTHORS 



Sidney, Sir Philip, 95. 

SiGOURNEY, LYDIA HuNTLEY, 

21. 

SiLLMAN, K. L., 498. 

Silverman, Dorothy S., 616. 
Skillman, Louis, 629. 
Smirnow, L., 494. 
Smith, Elizabeth Oakes 

(Prince), 139. 
Snowman, Henry, 305. 
SoLis Cohen. See Cohen. 
Solomon, L, 79. 
Sommer, Henry B., 530. 
Spielvogel, Nathan F., 594. 
Stein, Leopold, 203. 
Stern, Louis, 333. 
Stern, Sara Messing, 585. 
Stigand, William, 71. 
Straus, Ida (Mrs. Isidor), 

678. 
Strauss, Rose, 660, 694. 
SuHLER, Miriam, ioi. 
SuLLAM, Sara Copia, 249. 
Susskind von Trimberg, 248. 
Swain, Charles, 30. 
Swinburne, Algernon 

Charles, 659. 
Symonds, John Addington, 

651. 

Tabb, John B., 34. 
Taylor, George Lansing, 62. 
Teichner, Miriam, 601. 
Tennyson, Alfred, 130, 155. 
Thompson, James Maurice, 

743- 

ToB Elem, Joseph Bar Sam- 
uel, 370. 

Townsend, George Alfred, 
530. 

Trench, Richard Chenevix, 
190. 

Tybee, Edward Sydney, 559, 
682. 

UiMANN, Albert, 635. 
Untermeyer, Louis, 622. 



L^PTON, Arthur, 715. 
Usher, B. B., 654. 

Vaughan, Henry, 22. 
Vernon - Epstein, Walter, 

469. 
Viereck, George Sylvester, 

648. 

W. V. B., 662. 

W. W., 388. 

Wagner, Richard, 630. 

Wallington, Charles M., 

519. 
Waterhouse, a. J., 674. 
Waters, Adelaide G., i86. 
Weisberg, Florence, 285, 

335, 407, 408, 708. 
Weiss, Harry, 336, 411, 540, 

628, 715, 755. 
Whittier, John Greenleaf, 

184. 
WiLBURN, Cora, 295, 548, 

711. 
Wilde, Oscar, 749. 
Willis, James, 485. 
Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 

105. 
Wilson, Ibbie McColm, 527, 

596. 
Wilton, Richard, 142. 

WiNSTOCK, MeLVIN G., 595. 

Wise, Isidor, 619. 
Wither, George, 65, 97. 
WoLFSOHN, Harry, 154, 517, 

539- 
Wordsworth, William, 633. 
Wynne, C. W., 533. 

X., 553. 

Young, Edward, 126. 

Zangwill, Israel, 74, 299, 

354, 391, 397, 507, '557, 
564, 566. 



819 



INDEX TO TRANSLATORS 



Abrahams, Israel, 274, 771. 

See also I. A. 
Adler, Elkan Nathan. See 

E. N. A. 
Altman, Rebecca A., 436, 

499. 
Armour, Margaret, 236, 258. 

Bernstein, Herman, 687. 
Blackwell, Alice Stone, 

166, 697, 716, 719. 
Blau, Joel, 277. 
BowRiNG, Sir John, 15. 
Brody, Alter, 87, 103. 

Chatfield, Allen W., 14. 
Chotzner, Joseph, 768, 772. 
Cohen, Henry, 518. 
Cohen, Israel, 239. 
Cohen, Solomon Solis, 242, 

331, 428, 439, 776. 
CusT, Robert Needham, 720. 

D. E. DE L., 421. 

Davis, Nina, 230, 276, 370, 

377, 434, 449, 45i, 453, 
456. 

E. N. A. [Elkin Nathan 
Adler (?)], 423. 

Ehrmann, H. B., 154, 539. 
Ettelson, Harry W., 768. 



Goodman, Henry, 625. 
Greenfield, Henry, 688. 

I. A. [Israel Abra- 
hams (?)], 241, 385, 772. 

J. F, 765. 

Jasin, Joseph, 704. 

Kallen, Horace M., 517. 
KoHUT, George Alexander, 
278, 506. 

Lazarus, Emma, 481. 

Leonard, Leah W., 280. 

Lieberman, Elias, 617. ' 

Lucas, Alice, 243, 296, 357, 
374, 381, 387, 405, 406, 
412, 422, 425, 443, 447. 

Magnus, Kate, 238. 
Mendes, H. Pereira, 240. 
Myers, Isidore, 504. 

Simon, M., 238. 
Snowman, Henry, 460. 
Solis Cohen, Solomon. See 
Cohen, Solomon Solis. 

Zangvvill, Israel, 383, 438, 
442, 454, 456, 461- 



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